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Texas Tuesday: Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith

Jan26

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 duster. So when she hears that the U.S. Army has formed a group called the WASPs, Women Airforce Service Pilots, Ida Mae Jones is determined to sign up, even though she lives in Louisiana and the training is to take place in Sweetwater, Texas, two places where the very idea of a young black woman serving alongside white women is sure to be anathema. So in order to get into the WASP’s, Ida Mae basically pretends to be white.

A lot of the book is about the training and the dangers these pioneering women pilots faced as they bravely gave themselves and their abilities to the war effort. I don’t know much about flying airplanes, so although I thought the parts of the book that described the training and the women’s heroics were wonderfully written, I don’t know how accurate they were. I assume Ms. Smith did her research since the book Flygirl started out as a master’s thesis.

Another aspect of the book is the discussion and treatment of race and skin color. I thought this was fascinating, especially in light of recent discussions in the kidlitosphere. What does it mean to be black or to be a person of color? How do POC themselves see the variations in skin color? Is it wrong to pretend to be white and leave your darker-skinned family and friends behind? Even for a good cause?

One of the scenes in the book reminded me of Esther in particular. Ida Mae, like Esther has hidden her heritage and her connection with her people, but she is asked by her mother to go to the military authorities and ask for help in finding her brother who is MIA. Ida Mae knows that if she asks about her brother, she may be discovered and sent home. Her story doesn’t exactly parallel Esther’s, but it is similar. And Ida Mae shows similar courage.

All the issues, discrimination against women and against people of color, the varied reasons that people have for volunteering to fight in a war, misunderstandings and rifts between family members and friends, the cost of following one’s dreams, are explored with both sensitivity and humor. I would recommend this book to all young women who are in the middle of deciding who they are and what they want to be. And as an older woman, I enjoyed reading about Ida Mae Jones and her adventures. I wanted her to be able to “have it all,” even as I knew that the time and place where the story was set wouldn’t allow for a completely happy ending.

Reading in Color: “Flygirl made me want to go out and learn how to fly an airplane (or at least fly in one so that I can sit in the front and observe the pilot). The way the characters describe their love of flying makes you want to try it.”

One Librarian’s Book Reviews: “The setting is absolutely perfect, with the details from the time period completely enhancing the whole feel of the book. I absolutely felt like every part of it seemed like it could be true.”

Liz at the YALSA blog: Flygirl examines universal questions of identity, family, and growing up, with flying being both what Ida Mae wants to do, as well as working as a metaphor for a young woman trying to escape the limitations her country places on her because of her race and her sex.

Interview with Sherri L. Smith at the YaYaYa’s

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

Jan14

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 review here.
6. Leaving the Bellweathers by Kristin Clark Venuti.
7. Bull Rider by Suzanne Morgan Williams. Semicolon review here.
8. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. Semicolon review here.
9. Any Which Wall by Laurel Snyder. Semicolon review here.
10. Black Angels by Linda Beatrice Brown. Semicolon review here.
11. Born to Fly by Michael Ferrari. Semicolon review here.
12. The Girl Who Threw Butterflies by Mich Cochrane. Semicolon review here.

What I Want to Win the Newbery (tba on Monday, January 18th):
Any of the above, but Heart of a Shepherd or Anything But Typical or Any Which Wall would please me to no end.

My Prediction for the Newbery Award and honor books:
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly. Semicolon review here.
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose.
When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead.
I predict that one of those three will win the Newbery with the other two as honor books.

I’m not very good at this predicting thing, though. Last year, I tried to read The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman twice and never did make it through the entire book.

Cybils Nominees that Betsy-Bee Read

Jan13

Betsy-Bee is ten years old, and she read:

Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur. A very sad book. Aubrey’s dad and sister died in a car crash, and then her mom ran away from her. So she had to go live with her grandma, and she meets a new friend named Brooke. Every chapter has a little sadness in it. Grade: A+

Jemma Hartman, Camper Extraordinaire by Brenda Ferber. Good book. Jemma gets to camp, and she thinks it’s going to be perfect with her best friend, Tammy. But her best friend’s cousin comes to camp, too, and Tammy spends all of her time with the cousin instead of Jemma. Grade: A-

Callie’s Rules by Naomi Zucker. Callie’s family isn’t really poor but they have a lot of kids. The mom and dad are kind of weird. The mom of the popular girl at school talks to Callie’s mom about replacing Halloween with Autumn Fest. Callie and her friend try to keep Halloween. Grade: A-

Red White and True Blue Mallory by This one was a cute little book. I learned some stuff about Washington, D.C. Mallory’s best friend deserts her and just wants to talk about this boy named C/Lo aka Carlos. Grade: B+

Boy Trouble (Claudia Cristina Cortez) by Diana Gallagher. This book is very short, and it’s about boys. Claudia, who’s thirteen years old, ends up with the boy she always dreamed of. The book didn’t have anything bad in it, but there was a bully and a popular mean person. Everything turned out OK. Grade: C-

Sometimes a Light Surprises by Jamie Langston Turner

Jan12

OK, right up front, this one is not my favorite Jamie Langston Turner title. That honor might go to A Garden to Keep or maybe the first book I read by Ms. Turner, Winter Birds. I supppose I’d have to say I liked Some Wildflower in My Heart better than this one, too.

And still Sometimes a Light Surprises is a nice slow ride through the psyche of an older man, Ben Buckley, who has encased himself in ritual and hidden himself in books and wordplay and is now living in a “gated community of [his] own making.” He’s walled himself off because of the death of his wife Chloe, murdered by an unknown assassin nearly twenty years before. After Chloe’s death, Ben withdraws emotionally from his four children and becomes an unapproachable, unloving father. I never did quite understand what Ben had done to make his family, especially his daughter Erin, quite so angry with him. He seems to have been an emotionally distant, but decent, father. He gave the children financial support, but not much love and caring. I would have liked a couple of flashback scenes or memories in which I could have read about exactly how Ben’s neglect of his children affected them. However, we are told that it did, and that has to be enough.

The book switches from one point of view to another frequently, and in addition to Ben Buckley, the reader is introduced in turn to:

Kelly Kovatch, a young Christian homeschool graduate whose mother, Kay, is dying of cancer,
Caroline Mason, Ben’s cranky and nosy secretary, who discovers a secret and doesn’t know what to do about it,
Erin Buckley Custer, Ben’s estranged and barren daughter,
and a host of minor characters who are mostly well-realized and interesting in their own right.
It would have been easy for Ms. Turner to go off on a tangent, telling us the stories of any one of the minor characters, and it almost feels as if she did that when Caroline and Erin, in particular, occupy center stage and the spotlight moves from Ben Buckley and his limited life to the people around him and how they interact with other people, some of whom never even come into contact with the main character. In this sense, the novel sometimes reads like a set of intertwined short stories or novelettes: one about Kelly Kovatch and her coming to terms with singleness, one about Caroline and her thirst for intrigue and significance, and another about Erin and her struggles with wanting a child and distrusting her father’s attempts at mending their broken relationship, and a final over-arching narrative about Ben Buckley.

The book should be enjoyed for what it is: an attempt at writing Christian fiction in which the characters are complicated and some of the issues remain unresolved at the end of the story. I do think I know what Ms. Turner was trying to do. In fact, she telegraphs her intentions in a scene where Kelly, who is also Mr. Buckley’s employee, visits her mother’s grave:

“I read one of those Christian novels you gave me, and I hated it,” Kelly said suddenly. . . . I mean I hated the fact that everything came out so happpy at the end, because it didn’t seem real. The girl acted too perfect, even when things went wrong, and then the man came along at just the right time and loved her at first sight, and at the end they overcame all their problems and got married . . . of course, they got married. Everybody gets married. The whole world gets married. Somebody ought to write a novel that doesn’t turn out so—”

This novel doesn’t turn out so, and Ms. Turner is to be commended for writing such compelling characters. I like character-driven novels. However, a little more plot in the next novel might be nice.

Texas Tuesday: Wait for Me, Watch for Me, Eula Bee by Patricia Beatty

Jan12

My Texas history class at homeschool co-op read this novel over the holidays. Patricia Beatty wrote over fifty books of historical fiction, and every one of them that I’ve read is a winner. Wait for Me, Watch for Me, Eula Bee is no exception.

Our hero is Lewallen, age thirteen, who’s been left to be the man of the house (and farm) when his older brother and father go off to fight for the Confederacy. Lewallen Collier has a younger brother and a little sister, Eula Bee. Because most of the men have gone to war, the Comanches have become more daring in their raids on farms and ranches, and Lewallen’s family is invited to shelter in the local fort and come back to their farm when the Indians have settled down or when the men have come back. Unfortunately for them, the Collier family make the wrong decision, and they fall victim to a band of Comanches who take Lewallen and Eula Bee captive and kill the rest of the family. (Warning: this scene in the book is fairly violent, not for squeamish readers.)

As a captive of the Comanche, Lewallen learns to work harder than he’s ever worked before, ride a horse like a Comanche, and hunt buffalo. He eventually escapes, but he spends the remainder of the book trying to rescue Eula Bee, for whom he feels a great sense of responsibility. In the course of his adventures, Lewallen saves the life of an Indian chief, becomes friends with the comancheros (Indian traders), and confronts the Kiowa brave who killed some of his family. The question throughout is whether or not Eula Bee will remember Lewallen if he ever finds her again.

The depictions of Comanche life and of Texas frontier life are vivid and memorable. Lewallen is a tough kid who has to grow up fast. And some of the minor characters are well-drawn, too, such as Grass Woman, a captive who has become one of The People (Comanche) and no longer wants to go back to the white man’s ways.

I was particularly struck by the family loyalty that Lewallen showed as he searched for his sister. I wonder if I would have that kind of stamina and faithfulness, or if my kids would.

If you’re teaching this book, here are a couple of links for materials:
Vocabulary quiz for Wait for Me, Watch for Me, Eula Bee

Other Indian captive books:
Trouble’s Daughter: The Story of Susanna Hutchinson, Indian Captive by Katherine Kirkpatrick. Susanna, daughter of the famous dissenter, Anne Hutchinson, is captured by the Lenape after the massacre of her entire family.She draws strength from the memory of her famous, strong-willed mother, but she finds herself becoming more and more admiring of the Lenape women she comes to know.
I am Regina by Sally M. Keehn. When Regina is captured by the Indians, she repeats her name to herself to remeind herself of her identity. However, after eight years of living with the Indians, all she knows is her Indian name. Based on the true story of Regina Leininger, Pennsylvania, 1755.
The Ransom of Mercy Carter by Caroline Cooney. 11 year old Mercy is taken captive by the Mohawks during the French and Indian War in 1704. Mercy also becomes accustomed to Indian life and may not want to go back when the opportunity arises. Study guide for this book.
Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison by Lois Lenski. 12 year old Mary is captured by the Seneca, based on a true story of a girl by the same name taken by the Indians in New York in 1758. Mary first becomes Corn Tassel, then later gets a new name, Woman of Great Courage. Discussion guide.
Standing in the Light: The Captive Diary of Catharine Carey Logan, Delaware Valley, Pennsylvania, 1763 by Mary Pope Osborne. Part of the Dear America series. Quaker children Caty Logan and her brother are also captured by the Lenape, and although they eventually return to their home, Caty feels estranged from her family and misses Indian life.
Where the Broken Heart Still Beats: The Story of Cynthia Ann Parker by Caroline Meyer. Cynthia Ann Parker was ckidnapped by the Comanche, married a Comanche leader, had three children, and was then kidnapped back by Texas Rangers in this story based on a true incident.
Captive Treasure by Milly Howard. In a sudden encounter on the trail with a Cheyenne raiding party, Carrie Talbot is taken off to a new life in the Cheyenne camp along the river.
The Raid by G. Clifton Wisler. When his little brother is carried off by raiding Comanches, fourteen-year-old Lige disguises himself as an Indian and joins a former slave in a bold rescue attempt.

What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell

Jan11

I just got around to reading Ms. Blundell’s National Book Award-winning young adult novel this weekend. If it wasn’t a 2008 publication, I would add it to my list of Best YA Books of 2009. It was nominated for the 2009 Cybils in the YA Fiction category, probably because it was published toward the end of 2008. And I’m not second guessing the panelists, but there must be some extra-fine books on the finalist list to have beaten this one out.

The setting and atmosphere reminded me of Mad Men and The Great Gatsby, although it takes place about a year after the end of World War II, in between Jay Gatsby’s follies (1922) and Don Draper’s escapades (1960’s). The setting and characters feel historically authentic, kind of film noir, with lots of cigarettes and Scotch and red lipstick and dancing and full skirts like those in White Christmas. I could imagine Alfred Hitchcock making a movie of this book, but I don’t know of anyone nowadays who could do it with the right touch.

The story itself is Hitchcock-ish, with “adultery, blackmail, and possible homicide,” very much dependent on the reader’s point of view, with a few surprising twists and turns along the way. I can imagine a very young Grace Kelly playing the lead part, a fifteen year old named Evie who has a crush on a twenty-three year old ex-GI named Peter (Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant?). There are a lot of scenes in which it’s obvious that something else is going on underneath the surface of the dialog, but it’s not so obvious just what that something else is. Hitchcock would have had a blast with camera angles and the characters’ complicated interactions.

The book is quite well-written. Evie, the narrator, has a voice that is vintage 1940’s and typical fifteen year old girl, going on forty, anxious to grow up and unsure of how. I chose a few lines to whet your appetite, almost at random:

“Now I recognized that other woman, the one I’d seen angry and turning her face away. All that pizzazz and underneath it was a whole lot of sad.”

“Ugly. Once in the schoolyard Herbie Connell threw a rock and it hit me in the back. This felt like that, ugly hitting me in the back. . . . I wanted to put my hands over my ears. I was gulping my tears into my mouth. I didn’t want to hear any more ugly tonight. So I ran.”

“I looked like a doll, a dish. The image in the mirror—it wasn’t me. If I had the clothes and the walk, I could make up a whole new person. I wasn’t who I used to be, anyway. A different me would do the thing I had to do today. The dish would do it.”

What I Saw and How I Lied is well worth your reading time as a coming-of-age novel, or a psychological thriller, or a study in family dynamics, or just a thoughtful, insight-filled romance. I found it intriguing, hard to put down, and fun to try to figure out.

Other bloggers said:

Bookshelves of Doom: “Evie Spooner’s story is a coming-of-age story. Like a lot of coming-of-age stories, there is a tragedy. Like a lot of coming-of-age stories, there is a first love. Like a lot of coming-of-age stories, our heroine learns that the adults in her life are not the shining stars she has always believed them to be. There are lies, there is betrayal, there is injustice, and Evie sees it all. Heck, as the title suggests, she participates in some of it.”

The Reading Zone: “I hate to summarize the book, because Judy Blundell has woven an intricate story, full of dark twists and turns down paths you can’t even imagine. There is murder, intrigue, a fascinating backdrop of World War II, racism, classism, and a classic (but dark) coming-of-age story. To summarize more would give away too much of the plot and I would hate to ruin it for anyone.”

The YA YA YA’S: “Blundell did an amazing job creating a moody, atmospheric, noirish novel. You can practically see the action unfurling before your eyes, complete with cigarette smoke wafting toward the ceiling. The atmosphere is so evocative that it elevates the quality of the book.”

At 5 Minutes for Books they’re inviting you to share a review that you read at anyone’s recommendation. I read What I Saw and How I Lied because of the many, many reviews I saw in the Kidlitosphere and because it won a National Book Award.

Semicolon’s Top 12 Young Adult Books Published in 2009

Jan7

Catching Fire by Suzane Collins. Sequel to The Hunger Games. Semicolon review of The Hunger Games here. Suffice it to say that Catching Fire was a worthy successor to the first book,and I’m looking forward to the next book from Ms. Collins due out in August.

Secret Keeper by Mitali Perkins. Semicolon review here.

If the Witness Lied by Caroline Cooney. Semicolon review here.

The Homeschool Liberation League by Lucy Frank. Semicolon review here.

After by Amy Efaw. Intense and heart-rending. Semicolon review here.

Don’t Judge a Girl By Her Cover by Ally Carter. The third book in the Gallagher Girls series about a girl who attends a secret school for spies. Pure fun.

Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George. Semicolon review here.

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork. Semicolon review here.

Ice Shock by M.G. Harris. Semicolon review here.

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson.

Fire by Kristin Cashore. Semicolon review here.

That’s actually eleven. I’m saving the last space since I’m in the process of reading the finalists for the YA Cybils Award. I can’t believe none of my top eleven made the finalist list. Those must be some seriously good books. Maybe one of the finalists will be my final “best YA book of 2009.”

(I was mistaken. One of my books, Chains, is on the Middle Grade Fiction finalist list, a list I helped choose, even though I think Chains is more suited to young adults. And another of the books I chose, Fire, is on the Young Adult Fantasy and Science Fiction finalist list.)

Cybils YA Fiction

Jan4

I’ve read eighty some-odd of the books nominated for the Cybils Middle Grade Fiction Award, and although I enjoyed the experience immensely, I’m ready to move on to fiction about and for some other age group. So I’ve been sampling the nominees on the YA fiction list and some other YA fiction published in 2009.

Living on Impulse by Cara Haycak. Mia’s impulsive nature leads her to shoplift, go clubbing, try out alcohol, and generally make a mess of her life. The book sees to imply that all teens have to go through a stupid decisions phase before they can become truly mature, but I’m not sure I believe that. Mia is also the child of an alcoholic mother and an unknown father, and those liabilities factor into her poor decision-making skills. Still, Ms. Hayak tells a good story, and Mia is an interesting character.
Other reviews: Liz at Tea Cozy, Serenehours.

After the Moment by Garrett Freyman-Weyr. Female author tries to tell the story of a young man’s first love form the male point of view. I think she does a fairly good job, but then, what would I know about it? Leigh is seventeen, and he’s a people-pleaser. Maia is sixteen, and she’s a “cutter, self-mutilator, anorexic, crazy, anxious, drunk girl.” They fall in love. Something bad happens to Maia, and Leigh does the wrong thing in response to her crisis.
I don’t know if it’s because they’re part of the Eastern prep school tradition or just that they’re out of my cultural milieu, but Maia, and especially Leigh, think and act in ways that just felt odd to me. Small example: “For the first time, zoning out with soccer failed him, forcing Leigh to turn his attention back to the war.” What? The only possible things to occupy Leigh’s attention are soccer and the Iraq War? The author made a big deal about how the war doesn’t really touch Leigh’s life, how he is insulated by background and privileged status from the war, and yet the only thing he can find to occupy his attention is Iraq? Just one example, but these people didn’t feel real to me. I couldn’t figure out why they acted as they acted. Still, I kept trying because the author did make me care what would happen to them.
Other reviews: Harmony Book Reviews, A Striped Armchair, Bart’s Bookshelf, Steph Su Reads.

Going Bovine by Libba Bray. I only made it through about 200 pages of this 480 page surreal adventure about a self-centered jerk named Cameron who has mad cow disease and goes on a road trip to save the world and find a cure. I gave up around the time we got to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I take it back; I kept reading and actually liked the part about the Happiness Cult. Then, when I got through rooting for one of the guys (Cameron picks up a sidekick midget named Gonzo) to take down the Happiness Cult, all I had left was the simulation of a bad acid trip with Cameron and Gonzo. And Gonzo is only a little less jerky than Cameron. So, I gave up and turned to the last chapter. WARNING: I write spoilers for books I don’t like so that you don’t have to suffer through them: Cameron dies. I think.
All the other bloggers who loved, loved , loved this book: Em’s Bookshelf, The Book Reader, A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy, Mrs. Magoo Reads, Juicilicious. I could keep linking, but you get the idea. I’m the odd man out, and you can all go bovine together if you want. If it comes in parts, as my daddy used to say, you can leave mine out.

Comfort by Joyce Hostetter. This sequel to Hostetter’s Blue, about a girl who is recovering from polio in the aftermath of World War II, suffered from the opposite problem from Going Bovine. Everyone in the novel, especially the young heroine, was so-o-o sincere, and patient, and understanding, and Good. The protagonist, Ann Fay, spends some time at Warm Springs Foundation in Georgia, and that section of the book felt like a fictional advertisement for the polio rehabilitation center. All of the “polios” are good, and happy, and dedicated to working hard to be rehabilitated. And I sound really snarky and condescending. Actually, I liked the book, and the part about Ann Fay’s daddy’s experiences with post -traumatic stress from the war was interesting and more believable. But overall the book was just a little too sweet and serious and humorless.

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. This one was great —until I got to the end, which wasn’t an ending at all, just a “To be continued” cliff-hanger kind of ending. Chapters that end in cliff-hangers are O.K. I get the point which is to keep the pages turning. Books that end with lines like the following are annoying, even though I will read the sequel, published this year and entitled The Ask and the Answer. The ending of The Knife of Never Letting Go:

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper to her. “I’m so sorry.”
We’ve run right into a trap.
We’ve run right off the end of the world.
“Welcome,” says the Mayor, “to New Prentisstown.”

End of Book One.

You can read more about the book (which was exciting and absorbing and quite violent) at: Becky’s Book Reviews, Presenting Lenore, Lazygal, Bib-Laura-graphy, or Things Mean a Lot.

So, this post turned out to be about the YA books that I thought were O.K., so-so, or really bad. I did find a couple of gems. Reviews of the really good ones coming soon.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.

What Karate Kid Read

Dec30

I’ve been a bit concerned and saddened by Karate’s Kid’s lack of interest in reading since he turned twelve going on eighteen (last March). I’m not sure he read much of anything this past summer. And he used to read a lot. So I decided to do two things:

First, I assigned him one book per week to read for school. He was required to read the book I picked out whether he liked it or not because he’s been discarding everything I suggest, no matter what it is, after a page or two, with the words, “That’s boring!”

Second, I decided to keep a list of all the books he did read this fall. Maybe I just didn’t notice what he was reading last summer because he wasn’t reading the books I suggested to him. However, I really don’t think he read much at all. Most of the books on this list were assigned for school. He only had to read them and talk to me about them, no written book reports. He did write or dictate to me a few comments about some of them, and I have included those in this post, in italics. A couple of the books on the list he picked up on his own and read. I don’t really like having to require kids to read. I want them to love reading for themselves. However, in this particular case, maybe it was a good idea.

A Parcel of Patterns by Jill Paton Walsh “is narrated by a girl named Mall Percival, and is about a sickness called The Black Death. The Black Death is also known as The Bubonic Plague, and it spread across Europe very quickly. The plague was spread by rats that had fleas. Those fleas had the disease, and since not every home was very clean, there were rats. And if there were rats, there were fleas. In this book, Mall tells the story of her town, Eyam, and how they fought through the plague. It all started with a tailor, and a new dress. A lot of people die in this book, but that just shows how horrible the plague was.”

Code Orange by Caroline Cooney. It had a good ending. I would like to read more books by Caroline Cooney. Code Orange was a pretty good book. I especially liked the part where the main guy was in the basement with the terrorist guy.

The Apprentice by Pilar Molina Llorente. I did not like this book very much. It just wasn’t my kind of book.

Mudville by Kurtis Scaletta. This book is about a town named Moundville, eventually called ‘Mudville’, because of the rain. It rained for 22 years, straight. As you can imagine, it was muddy. The main characters are two boys named Roy and Sturgis. Roy’s father was the last person in that town ever to hit a baseball. It was in the middle of a baseball between Moundville and Sinister Band, their rivals. Moundville always lost to them, but this year that changed. Moundville’s star all-around player, Bobby Fitz, had pulled some muscles in the first inning. But there was still hope for Moundville. In the distance, there were dark clouds.The Moundville coach thought that if they could hold off the game until it rained, then they could reschedule until their star player was better. Little did he know that it would rain for a long time.
I really liked this book; I really like baseball too. I hope that from reading this you will have the urge to get this book. When my mom gave it to me, I didn’t think I would like it very well, but I did. Mudville is a great book for all ages.

The Brooklyn Nine by Alan Gratz. was about the Schneider/Flint family, nine individuals from that family who all had something to do with baseball. It was sort of a series of short stories all tied together by baseball and by the family connection.

The Dunderheads by Paul Fleischman. This one was just weird. It was cool how they found a way for each person’s “talent” to be used.

Leaving the Bellweathers by Kristin Venuti. This book was also very weird and funny. I’m glad authors write books that are just fun and don’t have lots of descriptions. I don’t like having to read in-depth description that takes up a lot of space and is kind of pointless for me.

Gone From These Woods by Donna Seagraves. This book was about a kid named Daniel who accidentally kills his uncle while hunting in the woods. Daniel’s dad is a drunken dude. The book was OK, but most of it wasn’t very happy. I like happy books.

Take the Mummy and Run: The Riot Brothers Are On a Roll by Mary Amato. Seriously silly.

Captain Nobody by Dean Pitchford. Newt Newman is a nobody. He has two friends, and no one ever notices him. His older brother is a football star who is injured during a game. I didn’t like the book that much because it’s about something that never really would happen. No ten year old kid would go to school in his Halloween costume for a week.

Diary of a WImpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney. The first book was a lot better than this one.

NERDS: National Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society by Michael Buckley.

Alibi Junior High by Greg Logstead. This novel had a good story line, but the characters were a bit unbelievable.

Karate Kid’s favorite Cybils nominee: Leaving the Bellweathers by Kristin Venuti.

He likes funny. Any suggestions for his weekly books for 2010?

Ice Shock by M.G. Harris

Dec29

My review copy from the publishers of Ice Shock came in a nice yellow plastic cover with a reference to the Joshua Files website and a note that told me, “JOSH needs your help!” Of course, after I read the book I had to see what good old Josh needed me to do.

I’m not sure, but I think the SOS is a gimmick to get me to read the book. Still, it’s a good book, and if that’s the marketing ploy that works, more power to Josh and to Ms. Harris, the British author who wrote Invisible City, the first book in The Joshua Files series and the one I just read Ice Shock, the second book in the series. Zero Moment, the third book in the series is due out February 1st.

I read Ice Shock because it was nominated for a Cybil Award in the Middle Grade Fiction category. I haven’t read Invisible City, and I may or may not do so because I definitely know a lot of the plot of the first book from information contained in the second. I do plan to pick up a copy of Zero Moment when it comes out because I’m anxious to see what happens to Josh and his intended bride Ixchel.

Let’s back up. Josh Garcia is the British son of a Mexican archaeologist. When his father is reported dead as a result of a plane crash in Mexico, Josh must find out how he died and why. That’s the premise of the first book. Ice Shock takes place a couple of months after Josh has returned to Oxford, to his mother, with some answers, more questions, and orders from a mysterious mentor to shut down his blog. Unfortunately, the villains from the first book are still after Josh and after the ancient Mayan treasures he has discovered.

The book is part science fiction (space vehicles called Muwans that hover and land like helicopters), part fantasy (an invisible Mayan city), part mystery (what really happened to Josh’s father?), and part action adventure (Josh’s sport of choice is capoeira, “an Afro-Brazilian art form that combines elements of martial arts, music, and dance”). The book skews young adult. Although Josh is only supposed to be 13 years old, he feels older to me. Maybe European Mexican kids mature faster than Americans do.

Bottom line: fun, good cover, nice marketing, action adventure, boy appeal, good read.

Oh, I think the “Josh needs your help!” appeal is tied to a video game called The Descendant. Not my cuppa, but it might draw in the guys.