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Exposure by Mal Peet

Posted by Sherry on 6/8/2010 in 2009, Adult Fiction, Young Adult Fiction

Wow! Carnegie Medal winner Mal Peet has written a different book about fame, much more sophisticated than Claim to Fame (see below). Inspired by Shakespeare’s Othello, this novel is focused, not so much on jealousy, but on the perils and tragedies of celebrity. Otello is a soccer star, a black man who’s just signed a [...]

 
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Claim to Fame by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Posted by Sherry on 6/7/2010 in 2009, General, Young Adult Fiction

“This is my secret. I would call it a hidden talent, but talents are supposed to be happy possessions, something to rejoice over and nurture and maybe even gloat about. My secret skill has brought me nothing but pain. At any given moment I can hear anything anybody says about me., anywhere in the world.” [...]

 
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Willow by Julia Hoban

Posted by Sherry on 4/24/2010 in 2009, General, Young Adult Fiction

Willow is a book about self-injury, cutting, but it’s also about how something like cutting doesn’t really define a person. Willow, the heroine of the book, is much more than just a cutter. She’s a beautiful girl, who blushes easily. She’s an imaginative girl who loves Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. She’s capable of sacrificially someone [...]

 
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Forest Born by Shannon Hale

Posted by Sherry on 2/18/2010 in 2009, Children's Fiction, Fantasy Fiction

Forest Born is the fourth in Shannon Hale’s Books of Bayern series, a series that began with The Goose Girl, Ms. Hale’s debut novel and the one that made a name for her, winning all kinds of awards and accolades. The Goose Girl tells the story of crown princess Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee of Kildenree, aka [...]

 
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School UNFriendly

Posted by Sherry on 2/9/2010 in 2009, Children's Fiction, Education and Homeschool, General

Maybe it’s my own personal homeschool bias, but a lot of the books I read for the Cybils (Middle Grade Fiction), didn’t feel very school-friendly. I’ve already discussed the confusing mixed messages from and about school in Barbara Dee’s Solving Zoe, and how the protagonist, Zoe, learns and thrives much better outside of school than [...]

 
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Links and Thinks

Posted by Sherry on 2/3/2010 in 2009, Blogamundi (Links), Children's Fiction, Current Events, General, Movies

Melissa at Book Nut has an interview with Roseanne Parry, author of one of my favorite Middle Grade Fiction books of 2009. This movie sounds good. Has anyone seen it? Actually, Brown Bear Daughter went to see it with some friends from church and she said it was pretty good. She didn’t rave about it; [...]

 
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What Karate Kid Read: January 2010

Posted by Sherry on 2/1/2010 in 2009, Children's Fiction, Education and Homeschool, General

Operation Redwood by S. Terrell French. Julian’s uncle decides to chop down all the redwoods around Big Tree, which is a large redwood next to the farm of Robin Elder. Julian and Robin try to save the trees. I didn’t enjoy this book as much as others, to tell the truth. But it was still [...]

 
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What Betsy-Bee (age almost 11) Read: January 2010

Posted by Sherry on 2/1/2010 in 2009, Children's Fiction, Education and Homeschool, General

11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass. The book was about a girl and a boy. Since they were born on the same day, a lady thought that they should spend every birthday together, and they did–until their tenth birthday when the boy said something that made the girl mad, and they didn’t talk to each other [...]

 
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Texas Tuesday: Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith

Posted by Sherry on 1/26/2010 in 2009, General, History, Young Adult Fiction

What an inspiring and absorbing book! Ms. Smith writes about Ida Mae Jones, a self-identified “colored girl” who is light-skinned enough to pass for white. The book begins in late 1941, and of course, that means Pearl Harbor, and World War II. Ida Mae learned to fly airplanes from her daddy, who was a crop [...]

 
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Semicolon’s 12 Best Middle Grade Fiction Books of 2009 plus Newbery Predictions

Posted by Sherry on 1/14/2010 in 2009, 2010 Projects, Children's Fiction, General, Newbery Project

1. Anything But Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin. Semicolon review here. 2. Dani Noir by Nova Ren Suma. Semicolon review here. 3. Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick. 4. Heart of a Shepherd by Roseanne Parry. Semicolon review here. 5. William S. and the Great Escape by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. Semicolon [...]

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