Kidliterate

2011 Holiday Gift Guide: Adventures Your Middle Readers Will Ignore You For

Middle-grade fantasy: my bread and butter. Possibly my number one favorite category of all time. I cannot get enough of it. I never get tired of it. And boy, this was a great year for it. As usual, I'll mix in some (possibly) lesser-known favorites and make sure to get a couple of paperbacks in. And for the most part, I think these make great read-alouds - but remember with fantasy you can get some scary stuff. None of these books has anything worse than Harry Potter, though, so if your reader is okay with Harry, they'll be okay with these. 

1. THE EMERALD ATLAS by John Stephens: Hands down the best new fantasy of the year. Possibly the best new fantasy since Harry Potter. If your kid hasn't heard of this series yet, it's only because this is book one and it's only been out eight months. Kate, Michael and Emma have been passed from one orphanage to another, and everyone believes their parents are dead. At their latest orphanage, they accidentally discover a magical atlas - when you place a photograph inside its pages, the atlas takes you back in time to the moment the picture was taken. They are whisked into a past when the local town was run by a witch who is looking for that very same atlas. Will they be able to keep it hidden, get back to their own time, save the world - and possibly learn the truth about who they are and what happened to their family? I haven't mentioned this book in awhile because I think people actually got tired of hearing me talk about it. LOVE.

2. THE CLOCKWORK THREE by Matthew Kirby: Hugo Cabret meets The Thief Lord. Three children - a violin-playing orphan busker; an apprentice clockmaker; and a hotel maid with a very ill father - find their paths crossing time and again as each searches for one thing that will change their life forever. This was has a complex, twisting plot, and too long of a description gives too much away. Kirby's latest, ICEFALL, is also awesome - though totally different - it's a Norse folklore-inspired fantasy-tinged coming of age story, and I loved it too.

3. THE BOOK OF THREE by Lloyd Alexander: I have loved this series for over three decades, and I never get tired of re-reading it. I wish they would re-jacket them, but oh, the insides. Taran is an orphan and Assistant Pig-Keeper for Dallben the wizard's oracular pig, Hen Wen. Taran longs for adventure and when Hen Wen escapes her enclosure and he runs after her, he runs right into some. First he meets Prince Gwydion and then the enchantress Achren, who captures them both and takes them to the castle of the Horned King. Taran manages to escape with the help of a princess and a bard, both of whom will become prominent characters in the four following books, and when Gwydion is believed dead, it will fall to Taran to defend Prydain from the Horned King. This series is based on Welsh mythology. For me, this is one of the greatest fantasy series of all time. Alexander built a complex world that builds with each subsequent book, and the characters show true growth throughout the course of the story. I actually think I need to re-read it; just talking about it makes me want to.

4. BREADCRUMBS by Anne Ursu: Quietly, stunningly beautiful--this book just swept me off my feet. It's based on my favorite Andersen fairy tale, The Snow Queen. Hazel and Jack, 11 year old best friends, are being pulled apart by many things - problems at home; parental suggestion; peer pressure. It's a troubled time, right on the edge of puberty, and Hazel's confused and hurt - but when Jack's stolen away to the woods by a mysterious witch, there's no question that Hazel will go after him. The journey she embarks on is fraught with danger and loneliness and lessons to learn and bits of other Andersen fairy tales, and is woven together expertly. Give this one as part of a pair with A TALE DARK AND GRIMM, which I discuss below.

5. FLOORS by Patrick Carman: Leo lives at the Whippet Hotel, where his dad is the maintenance man, and things are a bit crazy - there are hidden rooms, secret staircases, and ducks living on the roof. One day Leo receives a box from Mr. Whippet, the missing owner of the hotel. The box starts him off on a wild chase through the hotel, finding clue after clue (and more crazy rooms than he ever knew existed), in order to ultimately save the hotel from nefarious people who want to buy it. This one's perfect for absolutely any kid - I NEVER had a failed handsell on it - but especially for fans of CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY or Jody Feldman's THE GOLLYWHOPPER GAMES. Sequels are coming!

6. PETER NIMBLE AND HIS FANTASTIC EYES by Jonathan Auxier: Sometimes when I really love a book I get bogged down in the handsell, and my description makes the book sound...not good. This is one of those books, so I'm going to cut and paste the jacket description, which sums up the plot WAY better than I do. I was on the ABA New Voices Committee that honored this book earlier this year, and it SO deserved it. Jonathan really is a voice to watch. And the plot: This is the utterly beguiling tale of a ten-year-old blind orphan who has been schooled in a life of thievery.One fateful afternoon, he steals a box from a mysterious traveling haberdasher--a box that contains three pairs of magical eyes. When he tries the first pair, he is instantly transported to a hidden island where he is presented with a special quest: to travel to the dangerous Vanished Kingdom and rescue a people in need. Along with his loyal sidekick--a knight who has been turned into an unfortunate combination of horse and cat--and the magic eyes, he embarks on an unforgettable, swashbuckling adventure to discover his true destiny.

7. THE SIXTY-EIGHT ROOMS by Marianne Malone: I reviewed this one in ARC form, back in 2009. It's out in paperback now, and I love it just as much - especially as I finally got to see the Thorne Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago last month!

8. SAVVY by Ingrid Law: I sold this book for years, but never actually read it until
about four months ago. (Actually, I listened to it on audiobook; it was a superb audiobook.) Mibs Beaumont is about to turn thirteen, and when a Beaumont turns thirteen, they get their Savvy. One of her brothers channels electricity and the other causes hurricanes, so she's expecting something really powerful - which she'll need if she's going to save her father, who's been in a horrible accident many miles away. Mibs - along with her brother and the preacher's children - stows away on a bus in order to get to her father in time, and what happens to them along the way will change everyone involved forever. 

9. A TALE DARK AND GRIMM by Adam Gidwitz: this book is a masterclass on story structure - a brilliant fairy tale retelling that begins as Hansel and Gretel and grows into so much more. The narrator talks to you throughout (I love when they break the fourth wall) and it does get quite creepy and gory in places, just like real fairy tales do. I cannot even tell you how much I am dying for Adam's next book to come out. Give this one as part of a pair, with BREADCRUMBS.

10. MIDDLEWORLD by J & P Voelkel: Great for fans of Percy Jackson! Max's parents are Mayan archaeologists, and when they disappear while on a dig, Max finds himself in Central America on a dangerous quest to find them. Along the way he will encounter Mayan Gods and more danger than he ever found in the video games that used to keep him company. Max is a total whiner at first, lazy and soft, but a Mayan girl soon kicks his butt into gear. LOVE this series.

11. EVERLOST by Neal Shusterman: I just met Neal at NCTE and told him, and I quote, "I sold the crap out of your books." Except I didn't say crap. He cracked up, but it was totally true. Neal is one of my favorites, ever. Most of his books are YA - and technically this is too - but I don't think it's scarier than Harry Potter, which is what I measure things against for parents. I'm going to cop out on this one, because the starred review from School Library Journal says it better than I ever could: "Nick and Allie are killed in an automobile accident and meet as they are heading down a tunnel toward the light. They land in Everlost, the space between the living and the end of the tunnel, and meet Lief, from whom they learn that Afterlights cannot walk where the living walk and that they cannot be seen or heard by the living. Allie is determined to go home, so she and Nick set out from the accident site in upstate New York and the safety of Lief's forest for New Jersey. Even though they have been warned about the McGill, a dreaded, evil monster, they slowly make their way, eventually arriving in New York City. There they meet Mary Hightower, who cares for Afterlights in the destroyed World Trade Towers, keeping them safe from the McGill and the Haunter. (In addition to children, buildings and objects can also cross into Everlost if they were much loved.) In their ensuing adventures, they are captured by the McGill and suffer a horrible fate before Nick discovers his true purpose in Everlost. Shusterman has created a world in which nothing is as it seems. As the teens struggle to make sense of this alternate afterlife, they also grow and develop as people. They learn to question those who have put themselves in power, and they begin to see what is truly important. Shusterman has reimagined what happens after death and questions power and the meaning of charity. While all this is going on, he has also managed to write a rip-roaring adventure complete with monsters, blimps, and high-diving horses." Book 1 of 3.

12. ALIENS ON VACATION by Clete Barrett Smith: Scrub is annoyed to be packed off to spend the summer with his grandmother - until he learns that her bed & breakfast is actually a vacation spot for aliens. While his grandmother disguises them and helps them blend in for an exotic Earth vacation, Scrub gets into one hairy situation after another. I don't often LOL while reading, but I did it many, many times while reading this. And everyone on the New Voices committee liked it just as much as I did! This was another handsell that pretty much never failed.

If I don't stop here I never will, but let me tell you - this list could be three times as long.

2011 Holiday Gift Guide: Compromise Picture Books for You and Your Pink-Loving Child

I changed the title of this entry. There are plenty of boys who like pink, ballet, and fairy tales. What was the matter with me?

My 5-year-old daughter Molly is obsessed with pink. Her walls are pink. She gets upset (VERY UPSET) if the day's outfit does not contain pink, and it's better for all concerned if it contains a LOT of pink. She is a living Pinkalicious. I know she will grow out of this; someday she will be a goth-y, moody teenager who will want to paint her bedroom black, and I will look back on these pink days wistfully. And to tell the truth, I don't mind it. She likes pink. What am I going to do? Give her an extended lecture on gender politics?  

We do like variety in our books, though, and I prefer that the pink books have something girl-powery about them. I'm not saying that we don't read some Disney Princess books. But we have to alternate those with better books, if only for the sanity of the three adults in the house. So these books are all
currently parent and Molly approved.

1. TALLULAH'S TUTU by Marilyn Singer: Tallulah believes that at the end of her first ballet lesson, she will receive a tutu. All ballerinas have tutus! When she learns that it takes a lot of hard work to earn your tutu, she refuses to continue lessons. But when the world conspires to put ballet everywhere she looks, Tallulah realizes that it's more a part of her than she knew. My ballerina was nuts about this one from the moment I first opened the cover.

2. THE PRINCESS KNIGHT by Cornelia Funke: The king lets his daughter, Violet, learn swordplay and horseback riding with her older brothers - but when she turns sixteen, he decides to hold a tournament. To choose her husband. Violet decides to take matters into her own hands by disguising herself as a boy and entering the tournament herself. I have been loving and recommending this book for years.

3. I HAD A FAVORITE DRESS by Boni Ashburn: I am crazy about this sweet, slightly melancholic story. When a young girl outgrows her favorite dress, her mother turns it into a shirt. When that grows too small, it becomes a tank top...and then a skirt...socks...and finally a hair bow. Molly hasn't done this yet with a favorite piece of clothing, but I'm sure she will before too
long.

4. THE QUEEN OF FRANCE by Tim Wadham: I had the pleasure of hosting the launch party for this book back in March, and I'm just as happy to recommend it today as I was then. Rose wakes up feeling royal, and soon enough, the Queen of France imperiously presents herself to Rose's mother. However, when Rose comes to find the Queen of France a little later, the Queen has disappeared. When the Queen comes back and proposes that she switch places with Rose, the parents talk about how much they would miss Rose. The ending sets up a sequel (I hope) quite nicely. We have read this time and again and I never get tired of it.

5. THE PRINCESSES HAVE A BALL by Teresa Bateman: No one has ever heard of this awesome multicultural retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses. The king wonders where his daughters disappear to every night, and how they are constantly wearing out their dancing slippers. When the cobbler follows them, he learns that they are...playing basketball! They convince their father to let them throw their own ball, and play a lively game for the court.

6. MISS LINA'S BALLERINAS (and sequel!) by Grace Maccarone: This one's super fun to read aloud, because Miss Lina's perfect eight ballerinas are named Christina, Edwina, Sabrina, Justina, Katrina, Bettina, Marina, and Nina. But one day Regina shows up and throws off the balance, and they have to figure out how to adjust their steps.

7. PRINCESSES ARE NOT QUITTERS by Kate Lum: This is another one that seemed to fly totally under the radar. Three totally bored princesses decide that their servants are having more fun outside, doing things - so they decide to switch places for the day. They quickly find out that the work is hard and exhausting, but stick to it. In the morning, they take pride in what they did (eating the bread they baked, etc) and make up some new rules for the palace meant to lighten the workers' loads and ensure that everyone has some peaceful time to play.

8. BETTY BUNNY LOVES CHOCOLATE CAKE by Michael Kaplan: After Betty Bunny tastes chocolate cake for the first time, she decides that she is going to marry it - and that she doesn't want to eat anything else. When she throws a tantrum over the cake, her mother decides to teach her a lesson in patience. This bunny IS my daughter, and I suspect some of yours as well, and you will find much that is familiar in these pages. Betty's siblings are also kind of hilarious.

9. BELINDA THE BALLERINA (and sequels) by Amy Young: There are four books about Belinda, and we love them all to pieces. Belinda has gigantic feet, and despite being an incredibly talented dancer, is basically laughed out of an audition. She gives up dancing forever and takes a job in a restaurant. But her love of dance won't disappear, and one night, the Maestro of the Grand Metropolitan Ballet is eating in the restaurant and sees her dance. Belinda's dream quickly comes true. Subsequent stories find her in Paris and then dancing the part of Cinderella, and one of our favorites takes us back to Belinda as a little girl.

10. THE SECRET KEEPER by Kate Coombs: Yet another book that cause people to look at me blankly. This one feels like an old fairy tale, but isn't. Kalli is the Secret Keeper of the village of Maldinga, and the villagers come to her and leave her with their most dreadful secrets. She locks them away in tiny drawers in her cottage. The secrets become too much for her to bear and she becomes ill. The villagers decide then to share happier secrets with her as well - including Taln, the potter's son, who has the happiest secret of all. This is a book I actually hug every time I take it down from the shelf, I love it so much.

11. THE DUCHESS OF WHIMSY by Randall de Seve: This is the utterly charming tale of the Duchess of Whimsy, who is fancy and wild and fabulous, and her totally ordinary husband, the Earl of Norm, who is not. The Duchess throws a dinner party, and when the chef becomes sick, her friends go nuts making the most extremely crazily elaborate food possible. The Earl's just hungry, though, and wanders off to make himself a grilled cheese. What happens when the Duchess follows?

12. WHILE MAMA HAD A QUICK LITTLE CHAT by Amy Reichert: This one's a bit of a wry lesson for those of us who love our smartphones. It's Rose's bedtime, but Uncle Fred calls, and Mama just needs to have a quick little chat. But the doorbell rings, and when Rose opens it, she finds men with party supplies. She tries to get Mama, but Mama just needs a minute! The doorbell keeps ringing and ringing and soon enough there's a huge party going on, and Rose's Mama just won't get off the phone. What is Rose to do? This book introduced me to the art of Alexandra Boiger, who also illustrated Tallulah's Tutu!

I have to stop here or I will never stop. If I've forgotten your favorite, it's entirely possible I've forgotten one of mine - post what you think I've overlooked and I'll do a catchup post in the weeks to come!

2011 Holiday Gift Guide: 7 Fantastical Books With Awesome Teen Girl Characters

I admit it; I'm doing the easiest one first! Because with this category, it's simply a matter of narrowing down to the best of the new and throwing in some of my old favorites. If you are buying for a younger kid who's reading way up and want to know if there's any older content in any of the titles, just leave me a comment.  

Also, with these holiday gift guides (and going forward), this blog has become an affiliate of my neighborhood indie bookstore, Left Bank Books. They ship pretty much everywhere. I can walk there from my house! If you click on a "buy" link from here, a teeny portion of what you buy will come back to me. I in turn will take that money and purchase kids' books and donate them to St. Louis city school libraries. It will be totally transparent; I will tell you how much I have received, what I bought with it and where it went!

Note: this list presupposes that your gift recipient has already read THE HUNGER GAMES, Robin McKinley, GRACELING, MISTWOOD, Cassandra Clare, and DIVERGENT. If they haven't, put all of those titles (and Robin's and Cassie's entire oeuvre) on your thinking-about list. Comment if you want specifics on Clare or on McKinley, my favorite writer of all time.

1. I don't suppose I've mentioned THE SCORPIO RACES, have I? (I reviewed it yesterday.)

2. DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE by Laini Taylor - Not only does it sport one of my favorite covers of the year, but it's also the story of seventeen-year-old Karou, an art student in a Prague boarding school, who carries a sketchbook of hideous, frightening monsters--the "family" that raised her. Her father sends her on dangerous missions across the world, collecting teeth for an unknown purpose. Strange black handprints begin to show up on the doors between our world and theirs, and then one day a chance encounter with an angel brings both of Karou's worlds crashing down around her. (And the end is a KILLER.)

3. THE NAME OF THE STAR by Maureen Johnson: This one is definitely for the
 Doctor Who fans on your list in particular. Maureen's latest brings us Rory, a Louisiana teen who's spending the year at a London boarding school. And just her luck - the day she arrives, a serial killer begins a series of Jack the Ripper copycat murders across the city. After a body is discovered on school grounds, Rory is pretty sure she's seen the killer - but why did no one else see him? I LOVE this book. Creepy and mysterious and a little funny with a dash of romance. 

4. SISTERS RED by Jackson Pearce: I love this incredibly dark Red Riding Hood retelling. Scarlett defended her sister Rosie during the wolf attack that killed their grandmother, but was seriously maimed in the attack - both physically and emotionally. Now Scarlett and Rosie hunt the wolves, protecting the young girls that the wolves seek to lure in and kill. Rosie's getting older, though, and has begun to dream of a different life. Can she have it and still remain loyal to the broken sister who saved her life?

5. SORCERY & CECELIA, or THE ENCHANTED CHOCOLATE POT by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer: I love to haul out an oldie but goodie like this one, book one of a series that began in 2003. It's an epistolary Regency fantasy. (Yes, you read that correctly.) I
love epistolary novels, Regency romances and fantasy, so you can imagine that when this came out I DEVOURED it. It takes place in an alternate, enchanted England, and our two protagonists are cousins: Kate, who's in London for the Season, and Cecilia, who's not allowed to go and has been left behind in the country. They keep up with one another through letters, and when Kate's nearly poisoned by a mysterious old woman and Cecilia meets a girl who she believes is enchanting young men to fall in love with her, their stories start sliding together. This is a romp of a fantasy, told with a wry sense of humor, in two distinct and charming voices.

6.GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS by Rae Carson: This is the book for your GRACELING and MISTWOOD fans. Once every hundred years someone is born with the Godstone embedded in their navel, and that person is destined to perform a great duty in their lifetime. Elisa is the chosen one, but has been overshadowed her whole life by her older sister and feels useless and adrift as a result. She comforts herself with food and is overweight as a result (what? a real girl?) and hopes to marry someone ugly - but instead ends up married to a mysterious foreign prince, for reasons no one will tell her. Early in her marriage she is kidnapped, and as a result is forced to grow up quickly - to take charge of her life and become the person she was chosen and destined to be. The book started slowly for me and I really didn't like Elisa at all at first, but stick with it - the writing gets stronger and stronger as the book goes on (as does Elisa), and I think Rae Carson is a writer to watch. 

7.PARANORMALCY by Kiersten White: This one's good for Buffy fans. Evie's 16 and lives at the International Paranormal Containment Agency. Because she has the rare power to see through magical
glamours, she helps the Agency capture rogue fantastical creatures and keep the world safe from harm - with the help of her pink taser. In her spare time, though, she's fending off obsessive advances from a nefarious fairy; obsessing over clothes and television shows; befriending a mermaid; and falling for the mysterious new guy who's some sort of magical creature...but no one can figure out exactly what. This one's a lot of fun but also has a ton of thrilling moments, and (despite looking like a bitchy Barbie on the cover) a heroine that you wish you could be friends with. 

If I've forgotten your favorite, it's entirely possible I've forgotten one of mine - post what you think I've overlooked and I'll do a catchup post in the weeks to come!

THE SCORPIO RACES by Maggie Stiefvater

I have typed and erased, typed and erased the first sentence of this review no fewer than five times. I do not really know how to tell you about this book. I feel like I have been living inside of it since I closed the pages on the first reading. I have now read it twice and am listening to it on audio, and I am quite sure that before the year closes I will have read through the physical book again. I have been a fan of Maggie's for awhile now, and loved the Wolves of Mercy Falls series a lot, but this book is different.

This book is exquisite. This book is magic. This book has moved me in ways that I think I haven't been moved since I first opened a Robin McKinley book. This book is now on my top ten YA of all time list. (Yes, I will write that entry.) This book is not for everyone, and some may dismiss it as being "too horsey," although I think those people may not have been looking deeply enough. To look at THE SCORPIO RACES and see only a book about horses is to miss...so much.

I do not want to spoil a single moment of this story for you, but I want to tell you that it is based on a tiny fragment of a legend about water horses that has been with the author a long time. It is about an island called Thisby, which is in our world, but not, because this book is what we call "alternate history." Our world, but not. Our history, but not. It is about the Scorpio Races, which are run on the beach every year, when the capull uisce (CAPple ISHka) come out of the ocean and into the hands of men, who fight to control their speed and their danger for a brief time in order to be named victor at day's end.

If they survive the beach, that is. And many do not.

And it is about Puck Connolly (and her brothers and her dead parents) and Sean Kendrick (and his dead father) and their mutual desire for freedom and mutual love of horses, and how their stories slide into one another, quietly, seamlessly, beautifully. These two people, who have lost everything and yet still have everything left to lose, somehow find one another amidst the surf and the sorrow and the stunning, beautiful words, and their story - the separate parts and the together parts - weave together to make something that I cannot seem to put down for more than a few days at a time. 

It is about horses, and not. It is about love, and not. It is about life and death and magic and folklore and family and debt and honor and OH MY GOODNESS THE SCENE WHERE SEAN BRINGS THE BREAD TO DINNER. And the last line, which has made me bow my head over the pages and sob twice. 

This book. THIS BOOK. This book, if you (or your gift recipient, should you be looking for holiday recommendations) love Robin McKinley or Kristin Cashore or Leah Cypess or Patricia McKillip. This book, which I feel I may never stop reading. This book, which has become tied for my Printz pick (my other favorite will be in another post). 

This book, which has curled itself around my heart and lives there still.

(This book, which you can enter to win a hardcover copy of, by going over to Kidliterate's Facebook page. For various reasons I need to up the numbers of fans the blog has on Facebook, so for the time being, contest entries will only be taken there.)

TUESDAYS AT THE CASTLE by Jessica Day George

First, a bit of business: Kidliterate now has a Facebook page, and I am giving away books every time we get a hundred new followers. When we got to 100, I gave away a complete set of Emily Jenkins' TOYS series in hardcover! So go here to like us on Facebook. Don't worry - we don't post often, so we won't be clogging up your feed!

Longtime readers of this blog (or shoppers at my former employer, The Bookstore That Shall Not Be Named) will most likely remember how unhappy I was when I learned that DRAGON SPEAR would be the last of Jessica Day George's books about the superlatively awesome Creel. And you may also remember that said book made my 2009 Favorites list (and that I again expressed my unhappiness about said series ending). Now, Ms. George has a good sense of humor, as her comment on that entry shows, and she did produce an awesome sequel to the gorgeous PRINCESS OF THE MIDNIGHT BALL (called PRINCESS OF GLASS), and is writing a third in that series.

So even though I still want more Creel (MORE!), I can't possibly stay mad at someone who writes these books I love so much. Because, my friends, she went and did it again - and not in a Britney type of way. This time, she's gone and created Princess Celie, and darned if I'm not head over heels again. 

Celie lives in Castle Glower, where Tuesdays are amazing. Why, you ask? Because on Tuesdays, the castle gets bored and changes itself. It might rearrange some corridors, or add a new room or two, or stick an entire wing on one end, or pop on some new towers. That door you take to get where you go? Might not be there on Tuesday. It was certainly frustrating to some visitors, but "Celie truly loved Castle Glower. She never minded being late for lessons because the corridor outside her room had become twice as long, and she certainly didn't mind the new room in the south wing that had a bouncy floor. Even if you could only get to it by climbing through the fireplace of the Winter Dining Hall." And Celie felt like the Castle loved her, too. Whenever she urgently needed to be somewhere, she could usually get there quickly. When she was sick, the Castle filled her room with flowers. It left her snacks when she was hungry and led her to fun places when she needed something to do.

Not only does the Castle change itself when bored, it also changes itself to alter circumstances or to help a situation along. The current King, Celie's father, was chosen by the Castle. If the Castle furnished a visitor's room poorly, the guards knew to keep a close eye on them. It seemed like the Castle truly knew everyone and exactly what was going on, all the time. 

So when Celie's parents and older brother disappear and she and her sister and younger brother are left alone with a Council that doesn't seem all that broken up about the vanished royals, it is to the Castle that the prince and princesses turn for help. But when the situation turns ever more dangerous and even the Castle seems unable to help, will Celie be able to save her family?

This is a GREAT read-aloud. It's also perfect for kids who love Gail Carson Levine or Jean Ferris or E.D. Baker. This is younger than Ms. George's other books, though fans of DRAGON SLIPPERS will find much to love here. I love feisty, whipsmart Celie and the motley band of allies she assembles under the watchful eyes of the Council scoundrels. I love how she learns and grows during the book but the learning and growing is all wrapped in rollicking adventure and secret passageways and spying and the most awesome Castle in kids' books. I love her relationship with her siblings, especially Rolf, the king's heir. I love how when you read this book, you can go from heart-pounding excitement to loud laughter on the same page.

AND it's the first book of three, so we've got two to go, and then you can all be mad with me at the end. At least until Jessica Day George pulls another awesome heroine out of her seemingly endless bag of tricks. **Correction - Ms. George tells me that she doesn't know how many books there will be about Castle Glower, and that it's not intended to be a trilogy. Sad face. Well, I love this one, and will be hopeful of more!**

An Ode To Laurel Snyder

I searched Kidliterate to find all of the other times I've reviewed Laurel Snyder's work here, and was horrified to find...none. I mentioned her awesome ANY WHICH WALL in my PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING WAIT FOR HARRY POTTER post, but other than that, no love for Laurel.

What is the matter with me??

Laurel Snyder writes like the child of Zilpha Keatley Snyder and Edward Eager, with a generous side of Judy Blume. Her books exist in worlds both real and unreal, and she is at her best when she is dabbling in a little magical realism. When I was nine or so, I would have wanted to live inside her books. I would have written her a letter about how much I loved her and I wouldn't have cared if I ever heard back. If her books had been published when I was nine, I probably would have read them in Dell Yearling editions, because she's a Random House novelist. They would have had the little horse on the top of the cover and that distinctive frame around the cover picture. I would have dog-eared them and read them over and over and never, ever loaned them to friends, because I didn't have a lot of money for books and I never wanted to risk losing them.

But I didn't have Laurel when I was nine, because Wikipedia tells me that when I was nine, Laurel was seven. So instead we were reading the same books around the same time, and we were growing up on the same coast and eating the same TastyKakes. And I grew up to be someone who puts books in the hands of kids, and Laurel grew up to be someone who writes the stories that fill some of those books.

Laurel's books sneak up on you. I don't think I realized how much I loved UP AND DOWN THE SCRATCHY MOUNTAINS (the story of Lucy the milkmaid, best friend of the prince, who's told she's "unsuitable" and goes up the mountains to find her vanished mother and her future) until I found myself talking about it almost every day in the bookstore. "Have I given you UP AND DOWN THE SCRATCHY MOUNTAINS?" I would ask young girl after young girl. If the answer was "no!" I would become appalled with myself. I WAS DEPRIVING A GIRL OF LUCY. With each subsequent handsell I found myself talking about it more and more. (Did I sell it to YOU? If not, I am sorry. I was depriving you of Lucy.)

In the summer I found myself frequently turning to the absolutely delightful ANY WHICH WALL, which is such a charming homage to Edward Eager that I find myself smiling just typing about it. The premise is simple: four bored kids find a magical wall in the middle of a cornfield; the wall transports them to other times and places. So simple. It would be so easy for a book with a plot this basically simple to be...trite. Derivative. Dull. But in Laurel's hands it turns into a perfect summer book, one that begs to be read aloud from the backseat as Mom or Dad or Adult Of Your Choice drives you down a long, long highway to the home of a relative or to a far-off campsite. I like to sell AWW with GONE-AWAY LAKE or THE SATURDAYS (assuming the reader has already plowed through Mr. Eager's books), because nothing's better than a little pile of books filled with the magic of summer, and I love selling new books alongside classic stories so that the reader can make the connections between the past and the present of storytelling. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't; either way, I find it delightful.

(I have to confess here that I have not actually read PENNY DREADFUL. I have been feeling guilty about this for about a year and a half. It is in my pile. I don't know what happened there.)

This month Laurel gave us BIGGER THAN A BREAD BOX. I needed this book when I was nine. I wish I could go back in time and give it to myself. When I was nine, I knew things were not good in my house. They never got any better. And there weren't really any books about kids like me, kids with a little brother whose parents weren't doing well; whose families were splitting apart. My friends didn't seem to be going through the same thing, either. It was a pretty lonely time, and books that helped...well, they were few and far between.

In BIGGER THAN A BREAD BOX, we meet 12 year old Rebecca. Rebecca's parents are going through a really bad patch, and her mom packs Rebecca and her brother Lew into the car and takes them from Baltimore to Atlanta to temporarily live with their grandmother. She gives Rebecca no warning about this, and suddenly, the whole world is different. But early in the trip Rebecca finds a mysterious bread box in the attic, and discovers that she can wish for anything she wants and as long as it fits in the bread box, it will appear. The wishing is amazing, but of course what Rebecca really wants can't fit in the box. She'll need to figure out other ways to cope with the changes in her world.

I wanted to hug this book, and I wanted it to hug nine-year-old me. And then I just became so, so glad that this book was in the world, and that kids who were like me back then have this kind of story to turn to. This book makes you feel like you're not alone in your suffering. I think it can help a kid make sense of their own broken world, and to see that families can break apart and still stay together in other ways. Family separation and divorce are things that are still hard to talk about, 28 years after my parents divorced. I think it's hard for kids to talk to their parents about things like this, and that makes books that deal with the subject even more important.

In the hands of another writer, this could have been a depressing, heavy-handed book. But Laurel comes along and sprinkles it with just enough magic and hope to keep it from being so, but not enough to make it sickly sweet or unrealistic. Rebecca feels so much like a real person to me, and because of that, I find making wishes and opening a bread box to find they've come true to be...believable. That's so hard. Magical realism is so hard to do right, but Laurel hits the right tone every time.

It's also so much harder to be a quiet writer than it is to be a loud one. I love the big, brassy, fantastical books that crowd the NYT bestseller list as much as the next girl, but the books that worm their way into my heart and stay there forever are always the quieter ones. The ones I know the author agonized over; the books that might have started as tiny seeds years ago and finally blossomed after long, long hours of work. The books that sneak up on me are the ones that stay with me the longest.

And more and more often, I find that they're by Laurel Snyder.

More Sci-Fi For Kids

Over at Locus Magazine, there's a great post full of sci-fi recommendations for young people written by Karen Meisner, an editor over at Strange Horizons (disclaimer: Karen and I have "known" one another online for...ever.) It's such a great idea I wanted to add some of my own.

SPACEHEADZ! by Jon Scieszka: I just spent three days with Mr. Scieszka, driving him around to five school visits and a library event, and I have to tell you - there is nothing more likely to re-inspire a children's book person like spending three days with Mr. Ambassador. Having book talked SPACEHEADZ about 25 times at 5 different schools, I can say that I am extremely familiar with this series - and I LOVE it. It's about a boy named Michael K who is starting at a new school, super nervous about fitting in and making the right friends. And who are the first two kids he meets? Bob and Jennifer, who tell them that they're aliens, and that their leader, Major Fluffy, is disguised as the class hamster. They're there to get 3.14 million + 1 Earthlings to sign on to be Spaceheadz, or their planet will shut Earth off. They're on the run from the AAA (the Anti-Alien Agency, natch) and need Michael K's help. (His response? "Please don't sit next to me.") It is awesome; perfect for reluctant boys especially, and very interactive. There are several related websites and an iPhone app I love called FLUFFY SPEAKS, where you can translate any language into Hamster. 

ALIENS ON VACATION by Clete Barrett Smith: I was thrilled when the rest of the New Voices committee agreed with me about this one, too. Scrub is forced to go stay with his grandmother for the summer, but everything changes when he learns that the B&B she runs is actually filled with portals to other planets, and she plays hosts to aliens who want to spend their vacations on Earth. 

IGNATIUS MACFARLAND: FREQUENAUT! by Paul Feig: I can never understand why this series hasn't broken out. I raved about this book back in 2008. For some reason the permalink to this post is being cranky, but if you go here and scroll down to 7/18, the review is there. I LOVE THIS BOOK.

SCIENCE FAIR by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson: super funny story of aliens who trick not-so-smart arrogant rich kids into building parts of a superweapon for their science fair project (so the aliens can then use the weapon to take over the earth), and the brilliant middle-class kids who bring the whole plot down. 

THE SEARCH FOR WONDLA by Tony DiTerlizzi: This beautifully illustrated novel tells the story of Eva Nine, a young human girl raised underground by a robot named Muthr. When her home is destroyed, Eva is forced aboveground where she learns that she is the only human on the planet. She must go on a quest to find others like her, and ultimately, a home. 

THE CITY OF EMBER by Jeanne DuPrau: Electricity powers the city of Ember, and light ends at the city's edge. But the lights are starting to go out, and there doesn't seem to be any way of stopping it - until Lina and Doon find a mysterious document that might just show them the way to save everyone. 

COSMIC by Frank Cottrell Boyce: 12-year-old Liam is tall enough to be mistaken for an adult, and cons his way into winning a contest to chaperone four other kids on a trip into outer space. What happens when the kids break the ship and look to Liam - the "adult" - to fix everything?

SIMON BLOOM: THE GRAVITY KEEPER by Michael Reisman": Simon stumbles upon the teacher's edition of his science book, which actually allows him to manipulate the laws of physics. Naturally, evil people seek said book, and Simon and his friends must keep it out of their hands.

KAPUT AND ZOSKY by Lewis Trondheim: graphic novel about two unbelievably incompetent aliens who make attempt after hapless attempt to take over the universe.

ASTRONAUT ACADEMY by Dave Roman: first in a graphic novel series about a former super hero who's just trying to blend in at the Astronaut Academy. If only it wasn't for the pesky robot doppleganger who's trying to kill him...

many books by Margaret Peterson Haddix: Haddix can satisfy many a yearning for this type of book. TURNABOUT; the SHADOW CHILDREN series; and THE MISSING series are all terrific sci-fi books for late elementary/early middle school-aged kids, and high level younger readers will love them too.

LOOKING AHEAD: Dark Eden by Patrick Carman

Dear Patrick:

I told you I didn't like scary books.

When you were here in September, I told you how I went and book-talked your books to four schools, and I told them all that SKELETON CREEK would be perfect for them if they liked scary books, but that I didn't like scary books so I had to put it down after chapter four and couldn't watch any of the videos. And what did you say?

"Melissa, just remember that it's me who wrote them! You've met me. I'm the man behind the curtain. I'm not scary!"

Or something like that.

Okay. I thought, I'm a children's bookseller! I am almost 40 years old. I can read a book designed for ages 12 and up and be just fine. Patrick is really nice. I'll just remember that, and I'll be able to get through the book.

I got to page 135. I skipped all the videos. And I freaked myself out so much I locked myself into the bedroom last night. 

DEAR PATRICK I DO NOT LIKE SCARY BOOKS THE END.

If you like scary books, this is a scary book. You may not find it all that scary, if you are a connoisseur of scary books; you may read this and think I am a wimp. I am fully prepared to accept that. I like princesses and ponies. And I can tell you, Patrick Carman is an AWESOME writer. He did exactly what he set out to do: scare the pants off me. (Yes, it is all about me.)

Oh, what's the book about, you ask? 

A guy named Will suffers from a horrible, crippling phobia. His doctor sends him off with six other teenage phobia sufferers to Fort Eden, a place meant to help people with this problem. None of the teens know anything about what's going on there...except Will. Will's been sneaking into his doctor's files, and not only knows a lot about his fellow patients, but has a lot of info about Fort Eden itself. When they're deposited there, he disappears into the woods with a backpack full of supplies, determined to observe from the outside and see what's really going on.

The teens are put into weird rooms where they are forced to face their worst fears, and when they emerge from the rooms, they seem to be cured. But of course there's more going on here than that, and Will is determined to get to the bottom of it.

Like Patrick's SKELETON CREEK, TRACKERS, and 3:15 series, DARK EDEN includes a lot of electronic content. You can go take The Fear Test. Also at that page is the awesome trailer, and a link to where you can buy the fully interactive book app. With the app you can read the book, watch videos, look at maps of Fort Eden, and really immerse yourself in the book fully. You all know I am not the biggest fan of e-books, but this one is truly special, and I absolutely appreciate what Patrick is trying to do with it: make it irresistable to teens who might have left reading behind or turning to other things. And it WORKS. He is pretty much a genius at this sort of thing, and he's got a great team working with him.

BUT IT IS STILL TOO SCARY FOR ME. I will wait for the sequel to FLOORS, thank you very much.

WITH A NAME LIKE LOVE by Tess Hilmo

Before I start writing the actual review, I feel compelled to make something clear: OKAY FOR NOW by Gary Schmidt is my Newbery pick, and has been since the moment I read it. Months ago. In manuscript. On my iPhone. Three times in a row. 

But this book is going to give it a run for its money, and justifiably so. 

Ollie Love's daddy is a traveling preacher, the kind who moves his family around the country, setting up a revival tent and bringing the Word to the far-flung masses. Ollie knows the drill by now - they'll be there three days at the most; the townspeople will come and listen; her daddy will do his best to bring the people what he thinks they need; and then the family will move on. And it used to be exciting, the life on the open road, a new town at least once a week - but Ollie's a little older now, and times are changing, and she's thinking it would be mighty nice to settle down in one place with her daddy installed in his own church and the family installed in their own house. With plumbing, and electricity, and a town school Ollie and her siblings could go to every day. Ollie believes in what her daddy does, in what her family does, but she longs for more - she just doesn't know how to say it, because the idea of disappointing her beloved father is not one she can fully contemplate.

But on their first day in BInder, Ollie meets Luke, whose mom is in jail for killing his dad. Luke tells Ollie his mom is innocent, and Ollie believes him. She also believes that the only person who could convince the town that Luke's mom is innocent is her daddy - if only she can get him to stay around long enough to do it. This 1957 Arkansas town is filled with people who believe Luke's mama was as no-good as his daddy, and that Luke is destined to follow in their footsteps. A little investigation by Ollie, however, reveals a sad story of abuse and a house where all love has been strangled into nonexistence. Her kind heart and the sense of justice her family's instilled in her will not allow her to leave Luke's story alone, and with the help of her family and a kindhearted woman in town, Mrs. Mahoney, she sets out to make things right.

Some at Goodreads have described this as "To Kill A Mockingbird for the middle-grade set." I am often reluctant to compare anything to a classic, especially such an iconic, universally beloved one as TKAM, but I don't think the comparison hurts WANLL one bit. Ollie's a marvelous, Scout-like character with a strong sense of family and a sudden devotion to social justice that is breathtaking in the way it grabs hold of her. Her view of the world changes so many times during the course of this novel, and she grows up quickly in some very important ways. You know she is going to grow up to be an extraordinary woman outside the pages of her story, and you are lucky for every moment you spend in her company within it.

I am actually tearing up all over again just thinking about this marvelous debut novel from Tess Hilmo. I was on the ABA New Voices committee this year (which will get its own post, as it happened entirely during the many months this site sat near-dormant), and when we were readying our personal picks for finalists, this book came up during the discussion. For some reason, most of us hadn't gotten a copy, and the committee members who had felt so strongly about it that they rushed us out an email version of the manuscript. By the time we all quickly finished it, I think we all knew it would make the list handily. And to think we nearly missed it!

This one will have a long, long, incredibly deserved life, and I can only say the same for Tess Hilmo's career.  

ALANNA - THE FIRST ADVENTURE, SONG OF THE LIONESS - BOOK ONE by Tamora Pierce

note from Melissa: I love Kymm's reviews of stuff from ages ago. I've actually never read Alanna, despite meaning to for...well...ever. Now I REALLY want to read it. And I think reviews of old stuff really help a new crowd discover it!

   When I picked this one out of the library, I did so because it was the first of a series that looked interesting, not realizing that Tamora Pierce is She of Many Many Series and if I end up enjoying this one I'll just be chasing my tail desperately trying to quiet my OCD by reading them all, but then she'll just keep writing new ones and I'll never enver finish!  

That said, I plucked this one out of the pile and started on it anyway.

Alanna and her twin, Thom, are being sent off to precicely the opposite futures that they long for, Thom to become a knight and Alanna to go to the convent to become a lady (where they also teach sorcery, which is what Thom wants, not to beome a lady), so they decide to switch places.  Alanna chops off her hair and pretends to be Alan, and Thom just goes off to the convent because they train boys, too.  How fortunate that he doesn't have to pretend to be a girl.

When Alanna, now pretending to be Alan, gets to the palace, she makes friends with the prince and an enemy of a bully, she works hard because she is stubborn, she uses the magic that she fears to save a life, she learns to fight, she binds her chest, she is liked and admired by all, though she neither knows nor understands why.  Exciting things happen, and more exciting things will happen in three more books as Alanna grows up to become the warrior maiden that she wants to be.

This is an enjoyable book and I look forward to reading the other three, but it is clearly the work of a very young writer.  I was surprised when I did the math and found that Tamora Pierce was almost 30 when this was published, but it says on Wikipedia that she wrote these books in college, which makes perfect sense, because this is the character that you write when you are in high school.

Alanna has red hair and purple eyes (how many purple-eyed heroines did I come up with as a child?  As many as Anne Shirley did, I'm sure), she has an amazing amount of magical ability, more than anyone else, she beats up the bully even though she is smaller and a girl, she is admired by everyone, everyone who is nice likes her the best, but because she doesn't know it, she's not stuck up, and nobody is jealous that she gets special attention because they see that she is special and deserves it.  This is the person that we all pretended to be in grade school, the special, magical heroine worknig against great odds.  With purple eyes.