City Spies and The Sherlock Society by James Ponti

Aug23

Ponti, James. City Spies. Aladdin, 2020. Book 1 of 6 in a series by this author. Other books in the series: Golden Gate, Forbidden City, City of the Dead, Mission Manhattan, London Calling.

Ponti, James. The Sherlock Society. Aladdin, 2024. This series is new and possibly as yet uncompleted. Book #2 is called Hurricane Heist.

Because I have seen James Ponti’s middle grade novels suggested and praised in multiple places, I wanted to check them out for myself –and for possible inclusion in my library. I have only read the first book in each of the two series, but I would like to read more. So that’s my initial reaction.

City Spies, Ponti’s bestselling series starter, is indeed a good read. When Sara Martinez is sent to juvie for hacking computers, it’s really a revenge arrest initiated by her abusive foster parents. However, Sara is a computer whiz, and her hacking abilities have not gone unnoticed. A British spy, sent by M16, rescues Sara from the clutches of the New York juvenile justice system and recruits her to join a secret team of juvenile spies instead of going to jail. The City Spies are five kids from around the world who live now in Scotland, attend an elite school, and in their spare time, go on spy missions for the British Secret Intelligence Service.

It’s an intriguing set-up, and the book delivers on its premise. The City Spies, along with their handler, code name Mother, are sent to Paris to infiltrate an international youth competition on the science of rainmaking (seeding clouds and such), while they are really there to protect the reclusive millionaire who’s sponsoring the competition. And there are a few side missions and quirks and turns in the main mission such that Sara is initiated into the team in an exciting and adventurous operation. The assignment is resolved satisfactorily, but there are plenty of remaining questions about the team and its future to lead to another book (and another and another, it seems).

The writing is adequate. The plotting is the same. And the characters are interesting enough, as I said, to make me want to read at least the next book in the series. I can see why this series has gained such popularity. I have no content considerations, really, although there is a murder involved, off-stage, not explicitly described. And the kids do spy stuff: lies, deception, computer hacking, breaking into buildings, false identities–all in pursuit of catching and stopping the bad guys.

Ponti’s second series (that I read), The Sherlock Society, begins with a book not quite as exciting as City Spies, but promising. Instead of international intrigue, this one is about a group of American kids in Miami who are looking for a way to earn some money during the summer break. Babysitting is boring and mowing lawns is hot and sweaty, so Alex Sherlock and his friends Yadi and Lina, inspired by Alex’s surname and the famous predecessor of that same name, decide to start a detective agency. Then, Alex’s older sister, Zoe, and his retired journalist grandfather become involved, and the search for Al Capone’s hidden money becomes a crazy and dangerous chase after environmental polluters and current day criminals.

I liked this one almost as much as I did City Spies, but the pacing was a little off. There’s a lot of Miami history interspersed between the adventure, and any kids’ library in Florida would do well to have a copy of this book just for the history aspect. The characters in this one were fun. Grandfather is just crazy enough to be believable, and Alex’s parents are actually involved in his and Zoe’s lives and in the story, not absent, and that’s a breath of fresh air. Alex and his friends are nerdy, and lovable, and Zoe is a bit harder to get to know and love but worth it in the end. I look forward to reading Hurricane Heist soon, just in time for height of hurricane season here in Houston and in Florida.

Bored–Nothing to Do by Peter Spier

Aug19

President Franklin Roosevelt declared in 1939 that August 19, Orville Wright’s birthday, would be National Aviation Day – an annual occasion to celebrate the importance of aviation. So, today I’m featuring my favorite book about aviation and imagination and the cure for summer (or autumn) boredom—if you can be flexible enough as a parent to withstand the mess.

Peter Spier’s Bored–Nothing to Do is a Picture Book Preschool selection, and it’s one of the best books in the entire list. Two boys build an airplane out of junk found around the house. Then, they have to un-build it and put everything back. That’s the entire plot of the book. And the dialog is sparse, just the two boys brainstorming in brief phrases about how to build their airplane with a few comments from their parents at the beginning and the end of the book. (“Go do something. I was never bored at your age.” “Put it all back where it belongs.”)

Nevertheless, this is a book to read and pore over and examine and laugh with again and again and again. Spier’s illustrations are detailed and delightful. Look at each picture carefully List together all of the materials that boys use to build their airplane. Ask questions: what do you need to build an airplane? What did the Wright brothers use to build their first airplane? What makes it fly? Would an airplane like the one in the book really fly? How does the plane land safely?

I don’t really know enough about aeronautics and airplanes to answer most of the questions that the book raises, but I do know that as a springboard to imagination Bored–Nothing to Do is top flight. Maybe your children will want to research the first airplanes and the men who flew them after reading this story. Or maybe they will make and fly some paper airplanes. Or maybe they will want to try to build their own really, truly flying machine. (Guard the bedsheets and fence posts!)

Bored–Nothing to Do is out of print, fairly inexpensive as a used paperback, a bit expensive in used hardcover. If you find a copy at the library book sale or the thrift store, grab it. Otherwise, it’s definitely worth the $15 or so that the paperback copies are selling for at present. You will read this one over and over.

The Foreigner by Gladys Malvern

Aug6

When I was a young teen, I became captivated by a genre I called “Biblical fiction”—novels that took the characters and events of the Bible and enriched them with fictional backgrounds, motivations, and settings. Books like The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare and Moses by Katherine B. Shippen opened up a whole new world for me. I began to realize that the Bible stories I’d heard all my life weren’t just stories—they were history. The characters were real people who lived real, full lives.

By that age, I was old enough to understand the difference between fiction and fact, and I knew the Bible well enough to recognize when a story was embellishing or imagining details. I loved discovering Biblical truths embedded in these fictionalized accounts of what might have been.

My favorite author in this genre was Gladys Malvern, and The Foreigner was one of my favorite books of hers. It’s a retelling of the story of Ruth, enriched with descriptive details, imagined relationships, and added events that don’t contradict the Biblical narrative—but do expand it in thoughtful ways. In Malvern’s version, Ruth and Orpah are sisters, daughters of a wealthy Moabite family. Their parents are indifferent to their well-being and only interested in the bride-price offered by Elimelech, the Hebrew patriarch. As the story unfolds, Ruth comes to love and appreciate the customs and kindness of her new Hebrew family. Out of loyalty and love for Naomi, she undertakes a difficult journey from Moab to Bethlehem.

One of the most powerful aspects of Malvern’s version is her description of that arduous journey. She devotes two chapters to Naomi and Ruth’s trek across Moab and into Judea, traveling on foot with no protection and little provision. Along the way, they encounter wind and dust storms, wild animals, dehydration, and scorching desert sun. It helped me understand just how much Ruth must have sacrificed to follow Naomi to an unfamiliar land—where she would be seen as both a foreigner and, possibly, an enemy.

Malvern also fills in the gaps in the story of Ruth and Boaz—their courtship and eventual marriage—with plausible details that make their relationship more understandable. The original story, while beautiful, can feel puzzling. Why did one relative refuse to marry Ruth, while Boaz embraced the opportunity? Why did Naomi instruct Ruth to go to the threshing floor at night and lie at Boaz’s feet? While not every question is answered, Malvern offers possibilities that invite readers to think more deeply about the cultural and personal dynamics at play.

The final chapters read as a gentle, respectful romance—the story of two people falling in love and becoming the great-grandparents of King David. It’s completely clean and faithful to the Biblical account, at least in terms of the details Scripture actually gives us.

One element I found slightly odd was Ruth’s lingering memory of a childhood idol of Chemosh, the Moabite god. She remarks that Boaz somehow resembles this idol she once prayed to before converting to the Hebrew faith. It’s a minor detail, but it stood out in an otherwise lovely and respectful retelling.

I recommend The Foreigner for teens ages 12 and up—particularly those who enjoy a gentle romance and have enough Biblical background to distinguish fact from fiction. For me, it made Ruth and Naomi come alive with renewed admiration and compassion.

Candle Island by Lauren Wolk

Jul28

For 2025 Newbery Honor author Lauren Wolk (Wolf Hollow) offers a story about a precocious twelve year old, Lucretia Sanderson and her struggle to find friendship and community on Candle Island where she and her mother have come to live after the death of Lucretia’s father. Lucretia finds secrets, six secrets she says at the beginning of the book, on Candle Island, and she’s not sure she can manage to fit in with the islanders or deal with the rude, entitled summer people. Nevertheless, independent-minded Lucretia is determined to carve out her own place on the island and continue to follow her vocation as an artist, whether anyone likes her or believes in her or not.

This novel has Newbery contender written all over it. (I said the same in my review of Beyond the Bright Sea, one of Lauren Wolk’s previous books.) The writing, descriptive and lyrical, and the setting, an island off the coast of Maine, both reminded me of Gary B. Schmidt (The Wednesday Wars and Okay for Now) and of Katherine Paterson (Jacob Have I Loved). Lucretia is a child with a deep inner life, and she and her new friends (or enemies?) on the island, Murdock and Bastian, are almost too talented and mature to be believable. But that’s one of the points of the story, take it or leave it: that adults should have more respect for children who are gifted beyond their years.

Another issue in the story is the enmity between the summer kids, only on the island for summer vacation, and the islanders, who live on Candle Island year round. The summer teens are rich, rude, and possibly delinquents, while the islander are prickly, working class, and insular. This rift makes for a volatile dynamic as Lucretia attempts to become a part of the island community while also remaining true to the Quaker suffragette, Lucretia Mott, from whom her name is taken.

This story is also for animal lovers. Lucretia brings several animals to the new island home where she and her mother live, including an injured osprey that Lucretia is determined to rehabilitate and then set free. The complication is that ospreys are a protected species, and the law mandates that any injured bird found is supposed to be reported to authorities. So Lucretia’s responsibility to care for the osprey with the understanding that it must eventually go free is another conflict to be resolved over the course of the novel.

I really enjoyed reading Candle Island. Some of the minor characters are underdeveloped; the summer kids are all bad, all the time, spoiled rotten. But Lucretia and her new islander friends are full and interesting characters, and the story is about them, especially Lucretia, not about the summer vacationers. I’ve read three of Ms. Wolk’s other middle grade novels—Wolf Hollow, Beyond the Bright Sea, and Echo Mountain—and appreciated all of them. However, Candle Island is my favorite of her novels so far.

Free Fall by David Wiesner

Jul22

Free Fall is a wordless picture book, created and illustrated by David Wiesner, author and illustrator of many such books who has been awarded the Caldecott Medal three times and the Caldecott Honor thrice as well. Free Fall is one of Mr. Wiesner’s three Caldecott Honor books.

This book was donated to my library. I had never seen it before, but I picked it up to show to my five year old granddaughter. She immediately engaged with the story and delighted in the idea that she could “read” this book herself by telling the story that she saw in the pictures. This kind of reading seems like good practice for Charlotte Mason-style narration and picture study if that is what you want to use as a learning tool later on your child’s education.

The first page of this book shows a boy asleep in bed with an open book on his chest. He’s obviously fallen asleep while reading. On the next page, we see that the book is a book of maps, and one of the pages floats out into the outdoors. Perhaps into the boy’s dreams?

From there, I’ll leave you to make up your own story. The boy encounter kings and queens, castles and chess pieces, knights and an odd-looking alien creature, pigs in the city and in the desert, and many other weird, strange dreamlike landscapes and events. Eventually, he flies through the air, and then floats on a large leaf. Just as dream images are only connected by our own imagination into a somewhat coherent story, the images and pictures in this book are left for your imagination to tie together into a narrative.

And it’s hard not to try to make the picture into a story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Of course, the book itself does begin with a boy asleep and end with him waking up in the morning, with a few of the images from his dreams sitting on the bedside table. But the middle, the dream sequence, does lose the thread of plot from page to page, even though some of the images keep returning. Anyway, it’s a fun exercise in imagination and storytelling and fantasy.

If you know Chris Van Allsburg’s Ben’s Dream or if you’ve read Alice in Wonderland, you will be reminded of those books when you read this dreamy picture book by David Wiesner. For more books like this one, check out:

  • Journey by Aaron Becker. Using a red marker, a young girl draws a door on her bedroom wall and through it enters another world where she experiences many adventures, including being captured by an evil emperor.
  • Dreams by Peter Spier. Two children find fantastic pictures in the clouds.
  • Flotsam, also by David Wiesner. A camera goes floating through and under the sea, taking pictures as it goes?
  • Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold. A young girl dreams of flying above her Harlem home, claiming all she sees for herself and her family.
  • The aforementioned Ben’s Dream by Chris Van Allsberg. Ben has a dream in which he and his house float by the monuments of the world, half submerged in flood water.

The Bounces of Cynthiann’ by Evelyn Sibley Lampman

Jul15

The Bounce family consists of four siblings: Matthew (14), Markia (12), Luke (10), and Johanna, the baby of the family. As the book begins the Bounces are on their way to their uncle’s home in Cynthianna, Oregon. They have left, and sold, their own home in Rhode Island after the sudden death of their mother. With her death the Bounces are now orphans, and Uncle Seth is their only remaining relative (except a fifth cousin somewhere in Maine). But the Bounces are in for a surprise, indeed many surprises, when they arrive in Cynthianna. How will they fulfill their promise to their dying mother to keep the family together when it turns out that Uncle Seth is not there to help?

The story takes place in the late 1800’s, around 1870 or 1880, perhaps, but the book never divulges an exact date. The Bounces travel by ship from Rhode Island to Oregon and by stagecoach from the coast to Cynthianna. Cynthianna itself is a small town with small town values and prejudices, but the townspeople take the children in and provide for them until a relative and guardian can be found. Slowly over time, the Bounces become a part of the town family of Cynthianna, and when it’s time to leave, there are hard decisions to be made.

The town is full of “characters.” Doc Kinsey is self-taught, and he needs Luke to drive his horse and buggy because Doc tends to fall asleep on his rounds. Mrs. Weddle, who takes in Markia, is sharp-tongued and crochety, and it’s touch and go whether Markia will be able to get along with Mrs. Weddle and perform all the tasks that the older lady assigns. The other two Bounces, Matt and Johanna, are parceled out to other homes in town. Then there are the minor characters, Peaches Charley and Feng and the Widow Morrison. Peaches Charley is introduced:

“Standing in the middle of the kitchen floor, regarding them with dull, black, expressionless eyes, was an Indian. He wore a pair of ragged pants, a tattered old hat, and a dirty blanket which he clutched about his shoulders like a shawl. Rain trickled in small streams from the hat brim and dripped from the blanket to the clean planks or the kitchen floor.”

Peaches Charley and his fellow Native Americans who live near Cynthianna are seen through the eyes of the townspeople and characterized as lazy, beggarly, dirty, and also something of an oddity and a spectacle. And Feng, the “Chinaman” that Markia finds hiding in the barn loft, is also shown as a foreigner and a curiosity, although much cleaner than Peaches Charley. The counter-narrative to this characterization of non-whites in their midst is subtle: Peaches Charley becomes one of the heroes of the story when he finds a lost boy and bring him home. And Feng becomes an integral and respected part of the community of Cynthianna as he exercises his own gifts for service and homemaking. As the townspeople come to love and accept the Bounce family, they also, despite their prejudices, love and accept that Peaches Charley and Feng and the Widow Morrison, the recluse who lives alone and smokes a pipe and never participates in any community events, are also a part of the family, the community that is Cynthianna.

The Bounces of Cynthiann’ is an honest book. It doesn’t try to solve all of the problems of homelessness or prejudice or family tensions. It doesn’t try to show all sides of the issues that come up in the story. (I wonder how Peaches Charley and Feng thought about the white people in Cynthianna.) It just tells about some children and their absorption into a community full of quirky, imperfect people who somehow manage to get along and care for each other in spite of their imperfections. The book would make a really good read aloud, with lots of good discussion to be had about family and adoption and community and caring for strangers.

For more content considerations, check out the entry for this book at BIblioguides. If you are interested in learning more about Evelyn Sibley Lampman and her books, check out this podcast episode from Plumfield Moms. This book is available for check out to patrons of Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

By and By: Charles Albert Tindley, the Father of Gospel Music by Carole Boston Weatherford and Bryan Collier

Jun25
If the world from you withhold of its silver and its gold, 
And you have to get along with meager fare, 
Just remember, in His Word, how He feeds the little bird, 
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there. 

Refrain: 
Leave it there, leave it there, 
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there. 
If you trust and never doubt, 
He will surely bring you out, 
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.

My mama used to sing this song to me when I was little, but I never knew anything about the man who wrote it, Reverend Charles Albert Tindley. In this picture book biography, written in verse, and illustrated with beautiful paintings of scenes from Rev. Tindley’s life by Caldecott Honor illustrator Bryan Collier, I learned a little about the African American preacher and self-taught musician who wrote that song and many more standard gospel tunes and lyrics.

One sign of a great picture book biography is that it gives a child a snapshot of an admirable person’s life and work while engaging an older reader and causing him to want to know more. After reading Carole Boston Weatherford’s poetic biography, I immediately turned to my computer to find out more: more about Tindley himself, more of his songs, more about Tindley Temple where Reverend Tindley pastored and sang. I learned from the book and from my further researches:

  • Tindley was born in 1851 to an enslaved father and free mother, making him free by the standard of the law at that time.
  • As a boy he taught himself to read, and later he studied Hebrew at a synagogue and Greek by correspondence with Boston Theological School.
  • Tindley became pastor of the East Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, later (after Tindley’s death) renamed Tindley Temple United Methodist Church.
  • Tindley wrote at least 46 published hymns, lyrics and music, and is known as the Father of Gospel Music.
  • “Tindley’s wife Daisy passed away on the day [his] congregation moved to a larger sanctuary. He was reportedly heartbroken at her death, and later admitted about her death that ‘one day I will understand it better by and by’. Several of the children Tindley had with Daisy would help him publish his hymns and compositions.” (Wikipedia)

Tindley’s songs and hymns include We’ll Understand It Better By and By, Leave It There, The Storm Is Passing Over, What Are They Doing in Heaven?, and I’ll Overcome Someday. That last hymn is credited as the inspiration for the civil rights anthem, We Shall Overcome. Weatherford quotes snippets from several of Tindley’s songs embedded in the text of her picture book poem. I only wish that I could sing those lyrics as I read the book aloud to children, just as Reverend Tindley broke into song in the midst of his sermons.

By and By: Charles Albert Tindley, the Father of Gospel Music by Carole Boston Weatherford and Bryan Collier is a book well worth introducing to your family and leading to further exploration as you appreciate the music of this talented, God-educated man.

The Peppernuts by Maud and Miska Petersham

Jun24

Published in 1958, The Peppernuts tells the story of a slightly eccentric family and how they came to live in a house in what they call Paradise Valley. The Peppernut children, introduced in the first short chapter of the book, are:

  • Flitter Peppernut, who likes to pretend that she is Princess Irmegard who lives in a castle,
  • Captain Peppernut, named for his great-grandfather, a famous sea captain who may have also been a pirate, and
  • Tua A and Tua B, twins, whose “mother had given them the same name because when she called, they both came anyway. But their father had thought this was confusing and he had added the A and the B for his own convenience.”

Father is an author, who according to the children spends his time reading and typewriting. Father is also “very clever and could fix anything he wanted to.” but Mother Peppernut knows that “he never wanted to do it today, always tomorrow.” Still, the Peppernuts move into a beautiful, almost enchanted, but broken down house in Paradise Valley. They are renting the house in Paradise Valley for the summer, but the family soon decide that they never want to leave. Will they find a way to stay in Paradise Valley?

This early chapter book, eight short chapters and 63 pages long, is a perfect story for beginning readers who are ready to graduate from the controlled vocabulary of the easy readers. It’s a story that features imaginative play, love and exploration of nature, hard work, and sacrifice for the sake of the family community. It’s a gentle story, but there are issues to be decided and problems to be overcome.

Maud and Miska Petersham formed the talented and prolific married team who wrote and illustrated together more than 50 children’s books in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s. They collaborated on fiction and nonfiction stories, mostly for younger children with Miska and Maud Petersham both providing lovely illustrations to complement the text. Miska and Maud Petersham also illustrated many, many books written by other authors. The Petershams were one of the runners-up for the Caldecott Medal for An American ABC in 1942, and they won the 1946 Medal for The Rooster Crows, a collection of American nursery rhymes and jingles.

Chronicles of Wonder: The Story-Formed Life of C.S. Lewis by Leah Boden

Jun23

This juvenile biography of C.S. Lewis by Leah Boden, aka the Modern Miss Mason, serves as a good introduction for children ages nine to thirteen to the life and work of Clive Staples “Jack” Lewis. The book begins with a brief introduction entitled “Meet Jack.” Then, Ms. Boden goes on to tell readers about Jack’s childhood at Little Lea in Belfast, his schooldays in England, education at Oxford, his service as a soldier in World War I, and his Christian conversion story. The book continues through the rest of Lewis’s life; it’s not just a childhood biography. Lewis’s friends, Tolkien and the other Inklings, come into the story, and there’s a special focus on his close relationship with his brother Warnie. The book also has a chapter about Lewis’s marriage late in his life, to the American Joy Davidson, and finally her death and then Lewis’s own illness and death.

This biography, appropriate for children, doesn’t dwell on, in fact barely mentions, some of the more difficult events and personal relationships in Lewis’s life. Difficulties in Jack’s relationships with his father and with “Minto”, his deceased friend’s mother for whom he took responsibility for many years, are gently alluded to but not described with any real negativity at all. The famous break in Lewis’s friendship with Tolkien is never mentioned at all. Nor is Warnie’s struggle with alcoholism. It’s a “sanitized” version of Lewis’s life, if you will, but perfectly fit for children who are Narnia fans and who want to know about the creator and author of the Narnia tales.

I enjoyed reading about Lewis in a narrative story style. The dialog in the book is mostly taken from Lewis’s actual writings and from people who knew him and wrote down what he said at the time. So the book is as true as a story-formed tale can be. Author Leah Boden certainly achieved her aim in this biography—that children “be inspired by the writer filled with wonder.”

This biography is one of a series of such biographies called “Tales of Boldness and Faith”. The first book in the series, The Angel Orphan: Charlotte Mason Finds Her Way Home, is already available for purchase. Another book in the series is due out in August, 2025: Brave Princess Aina: The Courageous Heart of Sarah Forbes Bonetta. Patrons of Meriadoc Homeschool Library can check out Chronicles of Wonder or The Angel Orphan from the library now.

The King at the Door by Brock Cole

Jun10

Brock Cole was a professor of philosophy before becoming an illustrator and author of children’s fiction and picture books. Several of his picture books are derived from classic folk tales, such as The King at the Door (out of print, unfortunately), in which a ragged old beggar at the village inn says that he is really the king, but no one believes him except for a servant.

My pastor used this story as a sermon illustration one time, and it worked quite well. Picture books should be featured in sermons more often, in my opinion. This review says the book is about gullibility versus cynicism. I’m not so sure about that.

Little Baggit, the servant boy at the inn, believes the ragged old man who claims to be king and serves him with respect and with all the material wealth that he can spare. The innkeeper makes fun of Little Baggit and of the poor-looking old king and offers sarcastic comments and a lack of generosity. I think it’s a story that mirrors Matthew 25:32-48.

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Little Baggit sees the old man in need and he helps him. Perhaps Little Baggit recognizes the inherent kingliness in the man, or maybe not. But Little Baggit is generous and kind anyway. The innkeeper wouldn’t recognize a king (or a child of God) in any guise because the innkeeper is a stingy sourpuss who enjoys ridiculing Little Baggit’s instinct for kindness and faith.

The King at the Door was Dr. Brock Cole’s first published picture book, and I love it. It’s quirky with a happy and just ending, and it’s one of the recommended books in my Picture Book Preschool book list. I see that Dr. Cole later went on to write and publish at least three Young Adult novels. The YA novels sound awful to me, but that doesn’t tarnish this gem of a picture book.