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Dixie by Grace Gilman

Oct14

Cybils nominee: Easy Readers. Nominated by Bigfoot at Bigfoot Reads.

Emma is really excited about her part as Dorothy in the school play, The Wizard of Oz. And Emma’s dog, Dixie, gets to play Toto. But will Emma be able to learn her part with Dixie distracting her and begging her to play?

Cute. The illustrations by Sarah McConnell are whimsical watercolors, and Emma looks just like my imaginary picture of Dorothy with her red pigtails and freckled face. The story itself has a bit of gentle suspense (will Emma do well in the play?), and of course, everything turns out O.K. for both Emma and Dixie.

Pet stories and pet characters seem to be quite popular for this age group, maybe because early elementary is a good age to get your first pet. I know that Z-baby, age 10, has been wanting a pet, preferably a cat, since she was about five or six years old. And she finally got a cat a few months ago. Said cat, by the way, whose name is Monica, has taken over my previously cat-free house, and she is now lying on my bed, making herself at home.

Z-baby: “I liked this dog story better than the other one. It was good for little kids, too.”

*This book is nominated for a Cybils Award, and I am a judge for the first round thereof. However, no one paid me any money, and nobody knows which books will get to be finalists or which ones will get the awards. In other words, this review reflects my opinion and Z-baby’s and nothing else.

Ruby’s New Home by Tony and Lauren Dungy

Oct14

Cybils nominee: Easy Readers. Nominated by The HappyNappyBookseller.

Ruby is the new puppy, and Jade, Jordan, and Justin must learn to share. This easy reader (level two) reads like a Sunday School story without the God-talk. All the kids in the family learn to share the new puppy, Ruby.

Tony Dungy is a name even I recognize. He was the head football coach for the 2006 Super Bowl champion Baltimore Colts, and he’s known to be an evangelical Christian. Maybe that’s why the book reminded me of Sunday School. Coach Dungy and his wife Lauren have two daughters and five sons, another reason for me to like this writing team. There’s also an advertisement inside the back cover for Mr. Dungy’s fatherhood encouragement program, All Pro Dad’s Day and the matching program for women called iMom Mornings. There are currently 931 “All Pro Dad’s Day” chapters at public schools in 48 states in nine countries, where more than 40,000 fathers and their kids gather.

So, the story is slight but fun, and the intent and purpose is good. The family in the book is a happy, puppy-loving, African American family, and I think that’s a plus.

Z-baby: “It would be good for really little kids like five or six year olds.”

*This book is nominated for a Cybils Award, and I am a judge for the first round thereof. However, no one paid me any money, and nobody knows which books will get to be finalists or which ones will get the awards. In other words, this review reflects my opinion and Z-baby’s and nothing else.

Dodsworth in Rome by Tim Egan

Oct13

Cybils nominee: Easy Readers Nominated by Sondra Eklund at SonderBooks.

Dodsworth and the duck have been to New York, Paris, and London in previous books in this series about a mole?/badger?/some kind of animal with a pointy nose named Dodsworth and his sidekick, simply known as “the duck.” In this book Dodsworth and the duck are on vacation in Rome.

In this book the pair tour Rome, at first from the seat of a scooter, and then on foot. They visit the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, and the Sistine Chapel. They eat gelato, and then, when they come into some unexpected funds, lots of other very Italian dishes at nice Italian restaurants. The duck tries his hand at throwing pizzas, and Dodsworth tries to keep the duck and himself out of trouble.

I think kids would like this series with its simple jokes and wordplay. Dodsworth and the duck are like a comedy team, with Dodsworth as the straight man and the crazy duck as the jokester. As they explore Rome, kids get a fun introduction to that city and a chuckle or two. The funny parts reminded me of the classic Amelia Bedelia because the duck tends to take comments rather literally with comedic results.

Z-baby: Wow! I never knew that Italy was in Rome!
Me: No, Rome is in Italy. Rome is the city, and it’s in the country of Italy.
Z-baby: Oh, now I get it.

*This book is nominated for a Cybils Award, and I am a judge for the first round thereof. However, no one paid me any money, and nobody knows which books will get to be finalists or which ones will get the awards. In other words, this review reflects my opinion and Z-baby’s and nothing else.

The Cybils Are Here! The Cybils Are Here!

Oct1

What’s a Cybil?
The Cybils awards are given each year by bloggers for the year’s best children’s and young adult titles. Nominations open to the public on October 1st.

Can anyone nominate?
Yes, anyone may nominate one book per genre during the nomination period. The online form for nominations will be posted from Oct. 1-15.

Which books are eligible?
Any books published between the end of one contest and start of another. For 2011, that means books released between Oct. 16, 2010 and Oct. 15, 2011. This year, the Cybils are also accepting nominations for book apps for iPad, Web or computers. More eligibility rules are here.

Does it help if a book has lots of nominations?
NO! In fact, the online form will kick the nomination back if a book’s already been listed. It needs to get on the Cybils nomination list only once for consideration. After that, it’s up to the judges.

More contest info:
Finalists are posted January 1st. Winners are announced February 14th. Winners receive a fountain pen in an engraved wooden box.

Go forth and nominate your favorite young adult and children’s titles for 2010-2011.

Small Town Sinners by Melissa Walker

Aug3

Nominated for 2011 Cybil Awards, Young Adult Fiction category. Nominated by Ashley at Book Labyrinth.

This YA novel featuring small town Christian young people gets many things right. The story is absorbing. The characters are believable and interesting. The themes and issues in the book–teen pregnancy, homosexual temptation, drunk driving, etc.—are issues that young people do face; the presentation is realistic and sensitive. The author shows respect for the beliefs of conservative Christian people. I thought the parts of the book where the main character and narrator, Lacy Anne Byer, is experiencing God through her “prayer language” (charismatic speaking in tongues) were particularly well written and understanding.

However, (you knew there was a however) I am somewhat annoyed by books in which it is assumed that Christians, young and old alike, have never thought about the things that they believe, and it takes some enlightened outsider to bring them to their senses and make them realize their parochialism and blindness. In this book, Lacey’s new boyfriend is that enlightened, understanding, broad-minded outsider who makes Lacey Anne see that the Christian answers that her parents have given her are inadequate and unsatisfying. I don’t have a problem with Lacey Anne questioning the things she has been taught; I would question some of things that Lacey Anne has apparently been taught. And often it does take a new person’s perspective or a new experience to jumpstart that questioning process. Tyson, Lacey’s new friend in the book, is so perfect, however, that his answers seem obviously right and good while Lacey’s conservative Christianity comes off looking ineffectual and untrustworthy.

It doesn’t help that the adults in the book are mostly hypocritical, in a mild, unthinking way. There are no real villains in the book (other than Satan); even the bully is seen to be reacting to the abuse he receives at home from his alcoholic father. However, Lacey’s parents have difficulty dealing with her friendships with kids who are not perfect Christians from perfect families, and Lacey’s dad, a pastor, is quite over-protective. I have dealt with what I consider to be over-protective families in my church and in the homeschooling community, and Lacey’s dad is not uncommon. However, he is something of a caricature and his views on homosexuality, dating, and teen pregnancy are not very nuanced or well articulated.

I also didn’t like the way the book strongly implied that if a guy is a nerd and artistic and creative in his clothing choices, and if he hangs out mostly with girls and gets bullied, then he might be suppressing his homosexual identity. Especially, he might be smothering those tendencies if he has grown up in a small town and been taught that homosexual behavior is immoral. Talk about stereotypes. Artistic men are not naturally gay and do not necessarily, or even probably, have same sex desires. And if one does have those temptations, I would argue, like the people in Lacey’s church, that it’s not a bad thing to reject homosexual behavior for yourself. In fact, I would still maintain that the repudiation of homosex is what the Bible teaches and what is best for a man or woman who is tempted in that way.

Overall, Small Town Sinners is a good book, but it does encourage the view that there are no answers, only questions. And parents are not the ones to go to with your questions; a kid your age from out of town who has experienced so much more of Life is more likely to know the meaning thereof than your small town, uncomprehending parents. My final complaint is that there is very little or no gospel in Lacy Anne’s church or in her ideas about Christianity, only rules. Ty, who encourages Lacey Anne to question that legalism, doesn’t have much concept of what to replace it with either. Forgiveness is discussed, but staying “pure” and avoiding sins (of the flesh) are the main focus of Lacey’s brand of Christianity.

I didn’t even get into the “Hell House” aspect of the plot, which provides an interesting bit of evangelical Americana for those interested, but you can read more about that drama at Linus’s Blanket or at Presenting Lenore. Take it with a grain of salt, and some questions of your own, but Small Town Sinners provides a good story and some challenging ideas for evangelical Christian teens and non-religious ones alike.

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

Jul5

Nominated for 2011 Cybil Awards, Young Adult Fiction category. Nominated by Lisa Schroeder.

Who was the greater monster: Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin? This website says that Hitler was responsible for the death of about 12 million civilians while Stalin killed more than 20 million with his purges, executions, and repressive and ruinous policies. Who knows exactly? But one of the worst places to be would be caught between the two men and their armies and their insane, competitive desire for power. Lithuania in 1941, the setting for this novel, was in exactly that place: caught between the Nazis and the Stalinist Russians and crushed, co-opted, and destroyed by first one evil regime and then the other.

Fifteen year old Lina is preparing to go to art school when the NKVD comes to arrest her, her younger brother, Jonas, and her mother. Lina’s father has already disappeared, assumed to be arrested, and sent to some unknown prison. Or perhaps he’s dead, executed for the same unknown “crime” that causes the deportation of the rest of the family. What follows this beginning is a story as harrowing and cruel as any Jewish Holocaust story that you’ve read. Lina and her family starve, freeze, suffer, are mistreated, experience callous injustice, and barely survive their experience.

Author Ruta Sepetys is the American born daughter of a Lithuanian refugee. She wrote this story to “give a voice to the hundred of thousands of people who lost their lives during Stalin’s cleansing of the Baltic region.” Of course, this story, even though it is written to be representative of what happened to many Lithuanians during World War II, doesn’t tell the whole story. Some Lithuanians collaborated with the Nazis in opposition to the Russians. Some fought against the Soviet occupation. Some Lithuanians with ties to Germany fled to Germany during the first or second Soviet occupation of Lithuania. Some Lithuanians betrayed their neighbors to the NKVD or to the Nazis. Some Lithuanians saved their Jewish neighbors form the Nazis. It was a complicated and horrific time, and the book Between Shades of Gray reflects those complications. It is an excellent look into one family’s experience. Lina’s journey is based on interviews that Ms. Sepetys had with many Lithuanian survivors and their families.

Lithuania gained its independence from the Soviet Union on March 11, 1990.

YA Historical Fiction–12th and 13th Centuries

Jul1

I read two YA historical fiction novels set in medieval times this week–very different places, however.

The Queen’s Daughter by Susan Coventry. Joan of England, the youngest child of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, is transplanted from Poitiers to Sicily to the Holy Land back to Poitiers and finally to Toulouse. The fictionalized biography of Joan takes as its theme her struggle to choose between her parents’, especially her mother’s, advice to trust no one, certainly no man, and Joan’s own inclination to love and be loved. I enjoyed the story of this princess caught in the middle of the marital and political skirmishes of her parents and her pugnacious older brothers, and although the novel is mostly imagined since very little verifiable information about Joan’s life exists, it was believable, if perhaps a bit romantic. There’s also some odd speculation about Joan’s (married) love life, but it’s OK for older teens. Anyway, don’t we all want to believe that the princess lives happily ever after with the love of her life, after maybe some suffering and difficulty? That’s what happens in this version of Joan’s story, and it makes a for a satisfying read. Joan lived from 1165-1199 in medieval Europe.

Daughter of Xanadu by Dori Jones Yang. There are probably several novels that take the adventures of Marco Polo as a starting point, but this one is different because it’s told from the vantage point of the fictional sixteen year old granddaughter of the Great Kublai Khan, the Mongol ruler of China in the 13th century. Emmajin scorns the idea of becoming a dutiful wife and wants only to use her skill with a bow and her horsemanship to serve the Great Khan, her grandfather, in battle. However, when she is assigned to prove her loyalty by spying on the Westerners, Marco Polo,his father and his uncle, Emmajin becomes more and more confused about who she is and what she really wants out of life.

Reading this book was like entering another world, like the mind-bending worlds that fantasy and futuristic authors create, only this one was a real historical place and time. I knew very little about Mongol culture and customs when I started the book, and I felt as if by the time I finished I at least had an introduction to the world of Kublai Khan and his court. Emmajin is an admirable and strong character, and her romance-from-afar with Marco Polo is handled deftly and tastefully. Emajin also changes over the course of the book from an immature tomboyish adventurer to a young woman with strength and purpose. There are so many bookish, refined females in historical fiction; it was refreshing to read about an intelligent girl heroine who loves to fight and ride horses and compete for prizes. And she learns to channel that strength and competitiveness into pursuits that will make a real improvement in her world.

Daughter of Xanadu was nominated for 2011 Cybil Awards, Young Adult Fiction category.

More YA historicals set during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries:
The Brother Cadfael mysteries by Ellis Peters are not Young Adult, but older teens and young people would enjoy them immensely. They are murder mysteries set between about 1135 and about 1145, during the contest for the crown of England between King Stephen and Empress Maud.
Spider’s Voice by Gloria Skurzynski. Heloise and Abelard, the famous French lovers, as seen from the viewpoint of a trusted servant, Spider. 12th century.
De Granville trilogy (Blood Red Horse, Green Jasper, and Blade of Silver) by K.M. Grant. Two young men fight in the armies of Saladin and of Richard the Lion-hearted during and after the Third Crusade. 12th Century.
The Youngest Templar series (Keeper of the Grail, Trail of Fate, Orphan of Destiny) by Michael Spradlin. Cliffhanger warning: be sure to read these together because the first book, at least, ends at a rather inopportune and unsatisfying moment. An orphan boy goes to the Third Crusade, makes friends, discovers his heritage, and returns to England along with his companions, the archer Robard Hode and maid Maryam. (Get it? R.H and Maid M.?)
Knight Crusader by Ronald Welch. Third crusade again. 12th century.
The Single Shard by Linda Sue Park. Newbery Award winning story of a Korean orphan boy who wants to become a potter. Tree-Ear, named for a wild mushroom that grows without seed, lives under a bridge with his friend and mentor, Crane-man, but he has a dream of becoming an artisan. Late 12th century.
Hawksmaid: The Untold Story of Robin Hood and Maid Marian by Kathryn Lasky. Early 13th century during the reign of King John.
Perfect Fire trilogy (Blue Flame, White Heat, and Paradise Red) by K.M. Grant. The Catholic crusade against the Cathars in southern France (Occitania). Raimon and Yolanda fall in love during a time of religious conflict and danger for their country. 13th century.
The Kite Rider by Geraldine McCaughrean. Twelve year old Haoyou must protect his family after the death of his father in 13th century China.
I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade by Diane L. WIlson. Oyuna wants to become a great horsewoman, but when Kublai Khan’s soldiers raid her village and take all the horses, she disguises herself as a boy to remain with the herd.
Sisters of the Sword by Maya Snow. Two sisters, Kimi and Hana, run away from a tragedy in their aristocratic home and take refuge, disguised as boys, in the dojo of Master Goku who runs the finest samurai training school in Japan. Semicolon review here. 13th century.
The Ramsay Scallop by Frances Temple. Elenor and Thomas go on pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James before their arranged marriage can take place. End of the 13th century (1299).

The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic by Jennifer Trafton

Jun15

Cybils nominee: Middle Grade Fantasy and Science Fiction. Nominated by Amy at Hope Is the Word, because she beat me to it.

Read the first chapter of The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic.

The rest of it is just as good as the first chapter. End of review.

O.K. I do have more to say about this book. But I think mostly what I want to say is:

1. Read this book.

2. If G.K. Chesterton were living now and writing fantasy for middle grade readers, he would be accused of being Jennifer Trafton. Or she would be him. Or something.

3. Since my lovely Z-baby likes maps, here’s a link to a map of The Island at the Center of Everything.

4. How did she or her publisher manage to get Brett Helquist to illustrate? Mr. Helquist is the guy who did the illustrations for Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events and for Blue Balliet’s Chasing Vermeer and its sequels. Perfectly wonderful pictures.

5. Persimmony Smudge wants to be a heroine. How is this ambition different from what I wrote about yesterday, wanting to be famous? Is it different? I think so, but I’m not sure how to articulate the difference.

“The truth was that King Lucas the Loftier had never gone down from the mountain in his entire life It meant no longer being On Top of Majestic, no longer being Lofty. It meant descending into the world of Everybody Else. He would have no idea what to do, where to go, how to behave. He wouldn’t know who he was anymore.”

6. Persimmony Smudge is a wonderful name for a character. So are the following names in the book: Guafnoggle the Rumblebump, Worvil the Worrier, Jim-Jo Pumpernickel, King Lucas the Loftier, Rheuben Rhinkle, Barnbas Quill, and Dustin Dexterhoof. (I’ve always liked the word “pumpernickel”, but I never thought of using it as a name.)

7. Insanitorious. Ludiculous. Ridiposterous. Flibbertigibbeted. Discumbersomebubblated. The presence of these words and others like them in this book compels the logophile to read and enjoy. Word play galoric.

8. You can buy a copy of the book at the Rabbit Room Store online, if you want. Or Amazon.

“You said might!” Worvil covered his face with his hands. “Of all the words that have ever been invented, that is the worst. All of the terror in the world hangs on the word might. The Leafeaters might kidnap me and keep me locked up underground forever. They might tie me to a tree and leave me to be eaten by poison-tongued jumping tortoises. A hurricane might flood the Willow Woods and both of us drown . . .”
Persimmony stared at Worvil and discovered that she liked him. He was a coward, certainly, but he had Imagination. She liked people with Imagination.

9. Have you read the first chapter yet?

10. Oh, just buy the book already. (No, you cynical people, I don’t know Ms. Trafton personally, and I don’t get a commission from recommending her book. I do get a few cents if you go straight from here to Amazon and buy the book there.)

“For the last time, I am not the one who puts gifts in the pots!”
“Well, if you don’t, who does?”
“I have no idea,” said the potter. “Who puts words of truth into the strings of a Lyre? Perhaps there some things that we are not meant to understand. Without a few mysteries and a few giants, life would be a very small thing, after all.”

Taking Off by Jenny Moss

May4

Nominated for 2011 Cybil Awards, Young Adult Fiction category. Nominated by Kelly Jensen at Stacked.

Houston author, Jenny Moss, has written about my hometown setting, Clear Lake City, a suburb of Houston, and Johnson Space Center, the NASA facility where Engineer Husband works. Of course, when I saw such a local interest YA novel on the shelf at the library, I had to read it. And the time for a review, with the last shuttle Endeavor flight scheduled for this month, seems appropriate.

Annie Porter lives in Clear Lake, but she’s never been interested in the space program until her best friend invites her to a dinner where she’ll be able to meet Christa McAuliffe, NASA’s first Teacher-in-Space. Inspired by Christa’s zest for life, Annie, a senior in high school, decides to go to Florida to see the launch of the space shuttle Challenger.

Knowing how the story of Christa McAuliffe ends made this novel of a Texas girl torn between staying at home and venturing forth, well, a bit dark and foreboding. When the launch finally happens in the novel, even though I knew it would happen, the explosion of the Challenger was traumatic and terribly sad. Of course, Annie, who has placed almost all of her hopes and dreams for the future in her admiration for Christa McAuliffe, is devastated.

But Annie recovers and goes on to make a decision about whether she will be a “keeper or a dreamer.” I got those two labels from this post at Rabbit Room by Sarah Clarkson. As I commented there, I think all of us have some of the dreamer and some of the keeper inside us. The key is deciding when it’s time to “take off” and when it’s time to hold fast and make a nest and a community. Taking Off by Jenny Moss offers both a good story and some wisdom about choosing between the two modes of living intentionally.

Bitter Melon by Cara Chow

Mar20

Nominated for 2011 Cybil Awards, Young Adult Fiction category. Nominated by Lisa Jenn Bigelow.

“Frances, a Chinese-American student at an academically competitive school in San Francisco, has always had it drilled into her to be obedient to her mother and to be a straight-A student so that she can get into Berkeley to become a doctor. It has never even occurred to Frances to question her own feelings and desires until she accidentally winds up in speech class and finds herself with a hidden talent.”

Bitter Melon was pitched to me as sort of the “anti-Tiger Mother novel,” the Rest of the Story from the pressured child’s point of view. I would have thought about Ms. Chua’s recent controversial child-rearing memoir as I read Bitter Melon even if the association between the two books hadn’t been brought to my attention. Amy Chua apparently believes (I haven’t actually read her book, Battle Cry of the Tiger Mother) that children should be raised in a very strict, competitive, and pressured environment so that they will learn to achieve their best and be proud of themselves. In her Wall Street Journal article, Chua talks about giving praise and encouragement along with (or after) the initial response to substandard grades or performance which is to ” excoriate, punish and shame the child,” but it looks as if the positive reinforcement and simple love get short shrift in the Tiger Mother model for raising kids. Such methods may work to produce highly competent pianists or doctors, but I would argue that there’s a dark side to to this parenting technique that borders on the abusive, if it doesn’t actually cross over into child abuse.

Not all cultural traditions are equally moral, virtuous, and yes, Christ-like. The Chinese and other Asian cultures may have many things to teach the West about principled behavior, honoring parents, and even teaching children to excel, but shaming children and beating them and controlling their actions by force and by emotional manipulation even into young adulthood are not right ways of treating the children that God has placed into our families, no matter how brilliantly it makes them perform. Love is not, or should not be, based on performance, and our children should never wonder whether we will continue to love them if they fail.

Sadly enough, Frances in the book Bitter Melon sees herself making a choice between pleasing family (her mother’s expectations) and speaking her own truth. She writes, “Then the question of whether to choose one’s family at the expense of oneself or oneself at the expense of one’s family has no easy answer. It is like choosing whether to cut off one’s right hand or one’s left hand.” There is a third way: we can teach our children that they are ultimately responsible before God to praise, enjoy, and glorify Him forever. It’s not all about me. Nor is it all about family and making my parents happy. Life is about accepting the love of the One who created me, loving Him with all my heart, mind and strength, and glorifying Him with my talents and abilities, serving others as if they were the Lord Jesus Christ, and honoring my parents even if I must defy their expectations. It’s still not an easy answer, but it is right, and God’s way of living transcends culture, both East and West.

Bitter Melon is a good novel, and a good antidote to the poisonous temptation of making human excellence and/or filial devotion one’s god.