Little Catfish lives on a street without much beauty: only one old tree, a couple of struggling businesses, and The Regal, an old theater turned community center that’s struggling, too. But Little Catfish begins to listen to Mr. Odell tell stories of the glory days of the theater when luminaries such as Marian Anderson, Lena Horne, Duke Ellington, Josephine Baker, and especially Paul Robeson came to The Regal and performed there. The stories inspire Little Catfish, and even some of the older, tougher boys, and Mr. Odell and others begin to have a vision for the street and the community and a plan to revitalize it.

The Tallest Tree is a children’s biography, perhaps even hagiography, woven into a fictional account of inner city community reclamation. It’s a book about Paul Robeson and about the need that all children and indeed all people have for heroes. Unfortunately, Robeson is a flawed hero who, because of the racist treatment he received in his own country, was a defender of Stalin’s regime and a member of the Communist Party of the USA (although he denied such membership during his lifetime). In retaliation for Robeson’s political views and his outspoken activism in the civil rights movement, U.S. State Department denied him a passport. The book mentions this injustice, but fails to say anything about Robeson’s flawed judgement in supporting Stalinism.

I think it’s interesting the way we all tend to want to idealize our heroes, especially when we’re talking to children. When we as Christians talk about Biblical heroes —David or Joseph or Abraham—we tend to gloss over the imperfections of our heroes and magnify their greatness. And with secular heroes we do the same: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr. Each of them could do no wrong, at least in the children’s version of the story. Do we really think that children are unable to deal with ambiguity and imperfection? Or is it better to start children out on the edited version and let them deal with their heroes’ weaknesses later on with more maturity and insight?

However that may be, this book could serve to spark an interest among children who are looking for their own heroes, an interest in researching the history of our nation and of the civil rights movement in particular. The book includes lots of information on Robeson’s life and a list of resources that will give more information about him and his times. It also tells a good story, and that’s worth a great deal. And Paul Robeson was a talented and influential man despite his blind spots.

Robeson was particularly known as a singer for his renditions of Negro spirituals. Here’s a sample, Paul Robeson singing “Go Down, Moses”:

Alice’s Birthday Pig by Tim Kennemore

Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Writing Thank-you Notes by Peggy Gifford.

Both of these books are short, fifty-four (regular kid) pages and one hundred fifty-six (profusely illustrated and low print ratio) pages, respectively. Both of these books are appropriate for second and third grade readers who are ready for chapter books, but not interested in intricate plot and heavy subject matter. Both of these books feature a girl protagonist as indicated in the titles. Both of these books have a family setting and a gentle surprise ending.

Alice’s Birthday Pig is old-fashioned sweet fiction for little girls. Alice does have a little sister, Rosie, who’s a three year old tornado. And she does have an older brother who’s annoyingly pretentious and bossy and a tease. The story is all about the lead-in to Alice’s eighth birthday and about the pet pig that Alice really, really wants but doesn’t think her parents will get for her. The book would make a perfect accompanying gift book for an eight year old girl who’s getting a pet for Christmas or birthday, even if that gift is not a pig.

The Moxy Maxwell book is somewhat bolder and sassier than Alice’s Birthday Pig, mostly because Moxy has more “moxie” than Alice. Moxy has a brother, too, Mark, her twin, and Mark is “the second-most-famous photographer on Palmetto Lane.” The book is illustrated with Mark’s candid photographs. Moxy also has a little sister, Pansy, who’s “practicing to be a turtle—which was what she wanted to be when she grew up.” Moxy’s immediate problem is a list of twelve people to whom she needs to write thank-you notes on this the day after Christmas, and until she writes the thank-you notes, her mom won’t allow her to get ready to go visit her father who’s “a Big Mover and Shaker out in Hollywood.” The story has an I-Love-Lucy feel to it as Moxy gets herself deeper and deeper into trouble while trying to avoid writing the thank-you notes.

Moxy Maxwell has made an appearance in children’s literature before in last year’s Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little (Semicolon review here). Alice, as far as I know, is a new girl on the block. Both of these books have “Christmas present” written all over them. Choose according to the little girl recipient’s personality and preferences. Alice is for the ladylike animal lover who might have to deal with a teasing brother or a pesky little sister; Moxy is for the more active and trouble-prone girl of a thousand ideas who has trouble staying on task.

More bloggers love Moxy Maxwell:

Eva’s Book Addiction: “How I love a book with plenty of white space, BIG chapter names but very short chapters, and at least a sprinkling of funny illustrations, and I think I’m not alone. Those who share my proclivities will embrace the new Moxy Maxwell book.”

Mary Lee at A Year of Reading: “Only Moxy can make not writing thank-you notes so entertaining.”

I’ve noticed for a long time that girls and boys, at least in upper elementary/middle school, do friendship differently. Like all generalizations, this one is subject to exceptions, but generally girls rank their friends. They have a best friend, maybe several lesser friends, and some acquaintances that are OK for a casual conversation. Boys may have a best buddy, but they’ll pal around with almost anyone. Karate Kid has at least a dozen “best friends” depending on who’s available to play at any given time. It’s an odd phenomenon, but one of the things that makes this book a girl’s book rather than a boy-friendly title.

In Thank You, Lucky Stars, Ally Theresa Miller is looking forward to the first day of fifth grade —until the first day also becomes the day she loses her best friend, Becky. Somehow over the summer, Becky has become friends with Mona, their erstwhile worst enemy. For a guy a brush-off from a best buddy would be a signal to go find another friend, but for Ally Becky’s betrayal of their friendship is the beginning of a very bad school year.

The rest of the story tells how Ally recovers, does find a new friend, deals with said new friend’s imperfections and assets, and basically grows up over the course of the school year. It’s a decent enough story, but one thing bothered me. It took me a third of the book to figure out what time period it’s set in. It starts out with all sorts of seventies references: Star Wars, the Beatles, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Jolly Ranchers, smoking allowed in high school, the TV show Mission Impossible. Then there are also twenty-first century references: the slang term “chill” (isn’t that recent?), kitchen islands, malls, and middle schools. Finally on page 68, I learned that the sixties and the seventies were Ally’s parents’ day and that she learned about rock and roll and disco from them. So the setting is now, but it’s still very retro: go-go dancing and disco alongside CD’s, rappers, and Natalie Portman in People magazine.

Other than that fairly minor complaint, I would recommend this book for upper elementary school girls (not boys because of the puberty-for-girls talk) who enjoy realistic fiction about friendship issues and growing up.

Della Donna interview with Beverly Donofrio.

Yes, this book tells a story with characters and a plot, a beginning and an ending: three friends work together to solve the mystery of a missing Alexander Calder sculpture. But I’m not sure it’s about all that traditional mystery genre stuff; it’s more about mobiles, and games, and the free play of ideas.

“A mobile, one might say, is a little private celebration, an object defined by its movement and having no other existence. It is a flower that fades when it ceases to move, a pure play of movement in the sense that we speak of a pure play of light. . . . There is more of the unpredictable about them than in any other human creation. No human brain, not even their creator’s, could possibly foresee all the complex combinations of which they are capable.” ~Jean-Paul Sartre

A reader will get out of this book what he puts into it. If you’re not willing to work at it a bit, take the dead ends with a playful attitude, make lemonade from the lemons, then find another book. I almost did because I’m really a rather prosaic kind of gal. But I’m glad I persisted. Even though I thought the plot was rather mundane, the book itself was anything but pedestrian. I got to think about mobiles and art and play in a new way. The book asks questions: What is art? Can art change people’s perceptions? Can it make people see things differently? What is the difference between art and play? What is the place of art in our communities and in our living spaces? Can art enter our relationships and change them, too?

“A mobile is a moving, changing collection of objects constantly in motion, yet within the framework of a form. The framework of a family gives form, but as one starts with a man and woman, a mother and father, there is never any one day following another when these two, plus the children that come through adoption or birth into the home, are either the same age or at the same point of growth. Every individual is growing, changing, developing or declining – intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, physically and psychologically. A family is a group of individuals who are affecting each other…as each individual person is changing.” ~Edith Schaeffer

The Calder Game is, on the surface, a mystery adventure tale, and that’s its weakest aspect. Beneath the surface it’s profound on the subject of art and the influence of movement in art without being pretentious, and that’s where it shines. The book will challenge readers to find their own strengths and create their own mobiles. I predict that some kids, and some adults, won’t get it. But others will be inspired by the messiness of the game to take creativity to another level.

“The underlying sense of form in my work has been the system of the Universe, or part thereof.” ~Alexander Calder

“Think of the mobiles of God, the Artist, brought forth by the wind that He created. The wind, blowing in the trees, swaying the grass, bending a field of wheat as a ballet, rising again, bending again. The spray of the ocean, wild waves against rocks bringing forth a curve of spray, a mobile of spray. Light through spray, like thousands of diamonds blowing on invisible threads! The movement of the birth trees’ delicate branches and sensitive leaves twinkling and twisting, fluttering in a breeze; or clouds drifting slowly across a clear sky or scudding in swift movements as shapes change – God’s mobiles.” ~Edith Schaeffer

So, a non-traditional book deserves a non-traditional review. (By the way, I haven’t read Balliett’s first two books in this series yet, Chasing Vermeer and The Wright 3, but I plan to read them as soon as I get through Cybils season.)

Other more sequential blogger reviews:

KidsReads: “Like its predecessors, THE CALDER GAME utilizes real information about art, artists and places (in this case, the Cotswolds’ Blenheim Palace and its famous maze) to get readers excited about learning. It also shows how kids, each of whom has his or her unique way of thinking and problem-solving, can work together to make connections and find patterns. Unlike the previous two books, however, THE CALDER GAME relies more solidly on evidence, clues and deductive reasoning to arrive at its conclusion — resulting in a novel that will satisfy mystery fans as well as art lovers.”

Shelf Elf: “I don’t think this is a book for every kid. What Balliett is good at is creating a rich, half under-the-surface exploration of how art, philosophy, logic and people intersect. This book will really appeal to a certain sort of child – a kid who likes to look for connections, who spends time thinking about questions, who is a problem solver.”

When Melissa Gold sashays into church, late, in the first chapter of Violet Raines Almost Got Struck by Lightning, trouble is obviously on the way. Violet is used to being the center of attention, at least of her best friend Lottie’s attention, and she doesn’t take well to Melissa-from-Detroit taking center stage.

Violet is an eleven year old tomboy who lives and thrives in the town of Mitchell Hammock in rural Florida. She likes the Sunday night fish fry at Lottie’s house, a Brain Freeze bought at the gas station, playing in the woods with her friend Eddie, collecting words from the newspaper, and looking for shells by the river. She doesn’t like the old rotting net bridge across the river, long church services, girls who talk about bras and make-up and get all googly-eyed over boys, and especially she doesn’t like Melissa.

I learned something about lightning from reading this book. Did you know that:

“Florida is lightning capital of the United States. Florida experiences lightning strikes at least 100 days per year. In comparison, California has four or five thunderstorm days per year. Interstate 4 between Orlando and St. Petersburg is called lightning alley. There is more lightning activity on lightning alley than any other area in the U.S.” (Around Central Florida)

I also learned something more about pre-adolescent friendships and their ups and downs. I think this book will be especially popular in small towns and rural school libraries because Ms. Haworth has the feel of a backwoods Southern town just right. I do wish Violet didn’t have such a propensity for using the Lord’s name in vain, but it may not bother you. I also wish Melissa and Lottie didn’t have to get their ideas of what it means to grow up from Hollywood and from soap operas, but I reckon that’s fairly typical. And now that I’ve lapsed into Southern rural jargon myself, I’d better leave you with another quotation from Violet herself as she looks at a tree that hs survived a lightning strike:

“I put my hands on the tree and feel the wound. Closing my eyes, I can see that lightning strike again. This is one brave tree. It’s still standing and most of its leaves are still green. The storm didn’t knock it down. I’m glad now the tree isn’t naked. Even this scar don’t ruin its beauty. In fact, I think it gives it character, something most of your regular trees don’t have.”

Violet, too, is a survivor, and she’s certainly got character.

Bloggers review Violet Raines:

The Reading Zone: “Violet Raines Almost Got Struck by Lightning is the perfect book for rising middle schoolers. It beautifully depicts the struggles and triumphs of middle grade friendships- especially those tricky friendships that cross gender lines. It also provides a wonderful picture of growing up, growing friendships, and growing maturity.”

Hello Ello (from her nine year old daughter’s review): “I really want to read more funny books about Violet. I really wonder what Ms. Haworth’s next book will be about. I really hope it is like this one.”

Kate Messner: “There are so many things to praise about this novel — the lively, quirky characters, Violet’s fabulous voice, the Florida-in-summer setting, painted so perfectly I kept swatting imaginary mosquitoes while I read.”

Shelf Elf: “I’d happily put this in the hands of any Grade 5 girl. Here’s hoping that there are lots more titles just as worthy in the very long and ever-growing list of Cybils nominations.”

Addie’s mom, Mommers as Addie calls her, is an all-or-nothing kind of person. She’s always got a new plan, a new burst of enthusiasm, a new guy in her life, another way to strike it rich or make it big. But Addie doesn’t want a big house or a brand-new family or a even a new start in life; she’s just waiting for normal. Unfortunately, living with Mommers, normal is the one thing Addie doesn’t have a chance to get used to. Addie says: “Me, I’m good at getting used to things—been doing it all my life.”

Waiting for Normal is a sad and disturbing novel. Addie has an ex-step-father, the father of her two half-sisters, Brynna and Katie, who loves her and wants to take care of her. But she’s stuck in the custody of a neglectful, flighty, and irresponsible Mommers. Addie makes friends with the people who run the convenience store across the street, but they can’t do much about her living situation either. And Addie, of course, loves and defends her mom, even though Mommers is clearly delinquent and possibly under the influence of an addiction of some kind. (The novel, told from Addie’s point of view, is never clear on the drug issue, although it is implied.)

I go back and forth about this sort of novel. The writing is good, and the plot moves along at a good pace. Addie is a “normal” little girl caught in an abnormal situation. I think there are kids who are caught in similar situations who would feel relieved at being able to identify with Addie. And it doesn’t hurt other kids who have more stable families to learn to appreciate and sympathize with the difficulties some children have in their lives. That said, many children, both from normal and abnormal families, want to escape in reading, not to have to live through a child neglect story that does turn out well in the end, but has a lot of twists and turns, as Addie would say, in the meantime.

I suppose that Clementine and Pacy and Abigail Iris and the Penderwicks have their place in children’s literature and so do Gilly Hopkins and Lucky (The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Phelan) and Addie Schmeeter. I just usually prefer the Penderwicks or some really out of this world confrontation between good and evil like Lord of the Rings. Sad to say, I’m afraid Waiting for Normal hits a little too close to home and makes me worry that I’m missing the call to be a “hero”, in the words of Addie, to someone I’m not even noticing:

“I know the health stuff is important, but I think there’s more to getting happy than that. . . . I think you need heroes, too,” I said. I made a little fist for punch.

“Heroes?” she asked. “Like friends and family?”

“They can be be friends or family,” I said. “Webster’s says —”

“Webster’s?”

“The dictionary,” I explained. “A hero is someone who sets themselves apart from others. You know —someone who is strong or shows courage, takes a risk. And I know Webster’s is talking about well-known heroes. Like from the newspapers and history books. Inventors and athletes and people like Martin Luther King.”

“Uh-huh.” Soula was still listening.

“But don’t you think it’s possible . . .” —I twisted up my face— “that every person is a hero to someone else?”

Controversial subjects warning: some mild language, minor character is openly homosexual, characters living together before marriage, discussion of menstruation, negligent mother.

What other bloggers have to say about Waiting for Normal:

Megan at Read, Read, Read: “I would recommend this book to GIRLS in my class. I would love to say I would read it aloud or recommend it to everyone, but that is not possible in this case. Although it is one of the best books I have read this year for my age group students, it has far too much girlie talk to recommend to a boy.”

Fuse 8: “I would recommend reading the first chapter of this book (it’s only five pages) in a children’s literary course or a class on how to write for children as an example of showing, not telling. Our slow realization that Addie’s mother is selfish and self-centered isn’t crystal clear from page one. All the same, you’re getting hints of it.”

Bill at Literate Lives: “Addie’s character evokes sympathy from the reader without being a helpless victim. She is strong and refuses to let her surroundings defeat her. In the end, things turn out well for Addie but, Leslie Connor develops her story so well that it isn’t corny or overly sappy, just satisfying.”

Eleven is another book about whether or not girls and boys can be friends. Like Nadie and Nick in The Trouble With Rules, Sam and his new friend Caroline are friends outside of school but hide their friendship while they’re at school for fear of being teased.

However, being friends with a girl is the least of Sam’s worries. Sam is almost eleven years old, and he can’t really read. And he’s afraid, for some reason, of the number eleven. And worst of all, he’s found a newspaper clipping in the attic with a photograph of himself at three years old and an article he can’t read. It says something about “missing” and “Sam Bell”, but Sam’s last name is MacKenzie, not Bell. Sam lives with his grandfather, Mack, but now he’s wondering: is Mack really his grandfather? Where does he really belong? What are the dreams that disturb his rest, dreams about shouting and a terrible house and a boat and drowning? WIll Caroline help Sam find out the truth about his past?

This one is a sort of mystery/problem fiction title since Sam is learning disabled and out to solve a mystery, too. I can’t put my finger on the exact cause, maybe because I’m not a talented writer myself, but something about the writing or the plot felt disjointed or full of holes. Ms. Giff may have written the book to mirror the way Sam thinks, disorganized and fragmented, and if so, I got the message. I didn’t love it, but it’s a serviceable title about kids with a reading problem and about friendship and about a loving and supportive family and community. Some kids who identify with these themes will probably like it very much.

Blogger reviews of Eleven:

The Reading Zone: “Sam is a very likable character, and I was immediately drawn into his story. He struggles with school, specifically with reading, but he is talented in woodworking and design. . . . While this is not an edge of your seat mystery, it is full of suspense and I kept turning the pages, hoping to learn who Sam really was!”

Brooke at Story Pockets: “Giff (author of the Newbery Honor-winning Pictures of Hollis Woods) is a master at showing the way kids internalize their struggles, and how clueless the adults around them can sometimes be. Sam and Caroline’s journey into friendship and family is a quiet study of an ordinary kid facing some pretty extraordinary questions about his past, and the strength that can result afterwards.”

The Trouble With Rules by Leslie Bulion.

The Truth About Truman School by Dori Hellestad Butler.

Neither of these books is intended to be “anti-school”, but I gave the second one to my eighth grader who thinks she wants to attend the local public high school next year. I am not totally opposed to this idea, but I want her to know what she might be encountering if she goes there. If she still wants to go to public high school after reading The Truth About Truman School, I’ll be surprised. Ms. Butler’s novel features the stories of several key players in a drama that dominates the social and educational life of Truman School, a fictional school somewhere in the Midwestern U.S. It all starts when social outcasts, Zebby and Amr, decide to start a website that will be a news source for everyone at Truman Middle School, where anyone can post anything as long as it’s their own work and it tells the truth about something, or someone, at Truman School.

The hard part at first is getting anyone to visit the website. Then, the even harder part is separating fact from fiction. When someone starts posting really ugly, but true, things about Lilly, one of the most popular girls at school, what can Zebby and Amr do? They said as long as it was true . . . Then, things get uglier and uglier, and it’s difficult to know what’s true and what’s not.

The Trouble With Rules is aimed at a younger audience, and the trouble in this novel is not as serious nor as dark as the trouble at Truman School. Still, the social atmosphere in Room Twenty in the unnamed upper school (grades 4-6?) in Ms. Bulion’s book is not much better than that of Truman Middle School. The unwritten rule in fourth grade is that girls cannot be friends with boys; in fact, girls and boys cannot even sit on the same side of the lunchroom. Nadie has a problem with this rule since her best friend, Nick, happens to be of the male persuasion, but she and Nick have reached a compromise: they pretend to not to be friends in school and meet after school to enjoy the same friendly relationship they’ve always had. But now there’s a new problem: Summer Crawford, the new girl in class. Summer doesn’t know the rules about boys and girls, and she keeps getting Nadie in trouble.

This book is similar to the Truman School book, too, in that Nadie and her friend Nick are deeply involved in editing, doing artwork, and writing for their school newspaper. And part of the trouble they get into involves their journalistic pursuits. The Trouble With Rules, set as it is in an elementary school, feels like a prelude to the poisonously toxic atmosphere and the seriously hurtful events at Truman School. However, as befits a fourth grade story, all’s well that ends well in The Trouble With Rules, and Nadie and Nick and Summer and their classmates learn that even in fourth grade guys and gals can work and play together if they’re willing to defy “the rules.”

Brown Bear Daughter did read The Truth About Truman School, and her take on the book is that the characters are much too stereotypical. The “popular girls” are cruel, exclusive, and selfish, with very few redeeming qualities. The unpopular kids, especially the two victims of bullying who are even lower on the social scale than Zebby and Amr, are total outcasts with no friends and a miserable school existence. The teachers are unsympathetic and oblivious to the cruelty that is a huge part of daily life at Truman School. Brown Bear Daughter thinks that no school is quite that bad. I hate to disillusion her.

I take for granted the easy comraderie that my children share with both boys and girls in our church, which is mostly made up of homeschooling families, and in our homeschool co-op. Yes, there is some normal sexual tension as the children approach high school age, and boys and girls do hang out with children of their own gender more often than not. However, both my thirteen year old girl and my eleven year old boy have friends of the opposite sex, and they’re not embarrassed to be seen talking to their male or female friends or doing things with them. And not that we don’t have issues at times, but the young people in our homeschool co-op would never be as cruel to their peers as the eighth graders in The Truth About Truman School are. The boys and girls in our fifth grade Sunday School class sit at separate tables, their choice, but the boys and girls talk to each other civilly. And they’re not allowed to tease or slander one another. I’m reminded by books like these that it’s not that way everywhere.

By the way, I’d save The Truth About Truman School for middle school/junior high age kids who are dealing with bullying or a toxic social pecking order. The subject matter (physical and verbal bullying, a girl accused of being a “lezzie”) is a little heavy for elementary school unless the child is facing that kind of intense pressure and viciousness at a younger age. The Trouble With Rules, as I said, is milder and more upbeat.