Book reviews...from picture books to adult books, as well as books-to-movie info, and other stuff I think is interesting. Note: Not all books reviewed or recommended are appropriate for all ages.
JULY 17, 2012
TEENS/ADULTS: The House of the Scorpion
The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer is covered with award stickers, including the National Book Award, Newbery Honor, and Michael Printz award. After reading this very excellent and suspenseful cautionary tale, I'm not surprised.
Detailing a future where cloning is commonplace, The House of the Scorpion takes place in North America, which has been splintered into territories ruled by powerful drug lords, including the country called Opium.
The main character, Matt, is a clone of the tyrannical patriarch of the Alacrán empire, El Patrón. Unlike the clones that are made "eejits" at birth, Matt's mental faculties are left intact, and he grows up being cared for by Celia, who loves him like a son, and knowing that he is has a special role to play in the Alacrán family. When he meets other children in the Alacrán world, he learns that most people react to clones with fear and disgust. Yet, the little girl Maria, always treats him like the person he feels he is.
An exciting survival story begins to unfold, as Matt fights for his life, in more ways than one, and builds unlikely alliances, from Maria, to Tam Lin, a bodyguard with a dark secret, to the "Lost Boys" orphans that he meets later on.
Highly recommended.
Categories: Survival/Adventure,
Joa Recommends,
Fantasy
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MAY 17, 2012
Tall Story by Candy Gourlay
Every once in awhile I read a book I like so much that even when I'm finished reading, it is hard to return it...because I don't want it to be over. The novel,
Tall Story, was like that for me.
A very unique story told from the alternating perspectives of Bernanrdo and Andi, a brother and sister, who get acquainted for the first time in their lives, when Bernardo finally gets his paperwork approved to move from his homeland of the Phillipines, where he has been staying with his aunt and uncle, to London with his mother, stepfather, and younger sister.
Because of his 8 feet tall staure, Bernardo is believed by the local villagers to have the powers of a legendary giant. He leaves for London secretly, as people believe he is protecting them from earthquakes and other misfortune.
Andi, who loves basketball but is very disappointed that her new school only has a boys' team, is doubly frustrated when the boys' team is thrilled to have Bernardo on their team because of his height, even though he can barely play.
Meanwhile, Bernardo and Andi's mother, a nurse, is extremely worried about Bernardo's extreme height, realizing that he likely has as serious health condition.
This story is full of heart and an interesting plot line--and you really feel like you get to know both the characters so well...with the alternating chapters from their points of view. I think this would also make a great book to read-aloud.
Categories: Other Cultures,
Read-Aloud Recommendations,
Joa Recommends
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MARCH 17, 2012
Another good book by Helen Frost
I checked out the new novel,
Hidden by Helen Frost, as I had so enjoyed the book
Diamond Willow, another novel in verse by Frost. I was not disappointed.
This new book tells the story of two young teen girls, Wren and Darra, who arrive at the same camp one summer. Although relative strangers, they quickly realize that they are connected through the worst event in each of their own lives: Wren was unintentionally kidnapped as a 8 year old girl when Darra's father stole their family car after a botched robbery attempt.
Written in poetry form, the first half of the book tells about this childhood incident...Wren hiding in the back of the car, and later a boat in the garage, while Darra and her mother tried to grasp what was happening. When the girls connect at camp in the second half of the book, there are unresolved feelings--Wren is grateful as she knows that years earlier Darra brought her food and water, Darra is angry and sad about the loss of her father, in spite of his crime and abusive nature. Throught the summer, the girls work out this bond that neither of them chose, while keeping the secret from the other campers.
Both girls are likeable characters, and show strength in their own individual ways. Because of the poetry format...and somewhat suspenseful storyline, this is a fast read. I highly recommend this to tween, teen and adult readers.
Categories: Joa Recommends,
Realistic Reads
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DECEMBER 19, 2011
TEEN/ADULT: Now is the Time for Running
I just finished reading
Now is the Time for Running by Michael Williams. It was a very fast read, as suspenseful as it is brutal and heart-breaking. The story of Deo, a 15-year-old boy from Zimbawe, who cares for his autistic older brother, the book begins when soldiers arrive in his village during a soccer game and change everything. When Deo slips away to find his brother, Innocent, in hiding, his village (including his family and friends) are massacred by the solidiers.
Reminiscent of
A Long Way Gone, the true story of child soldier, Ismael Beah, the author of
Now is the Time for Running keeps the story more geared toward a younger teen audience by honestly conveying the grim, violent realities, without engaging in graphic descriptions.
Managing to make it to South Africa across a crocodile-infested river and a large game preserve, Deo and Innocent find work as migrants at a tomato-farm, facing anger and resentment from locals. The boys head off to Johannesberg, where they are again left to survive in another dangerous--albeit urban--wilderness.
While a very grim portrait of continuing on after nearly incomprehensible loss, the story is ultimately one of hope and survival. Highly recommended for older readers.
Categories: Joa Recommends,
Other Cultures,
Social Justice Issues
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NOVEMBER 8, 2011
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda
If the title alone doesn't pull you into this short chapter book, maybe the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid"-like illustrations, "handwriting" of different narrators, etc. will. The book is
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger.
The light-hearted plot centers on building a case for whether or not the origami Yoda that Dwight carries around with him has "magic" powers of giving advice. Different characters tell their individual stories, and some characters make notes throughout the notebook in their own "handwriting."
I would recommend this book to fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid as well as other stories of regular school life (with a little "twist")...like the Humphrey series, beginning with
The World According to Humphrey (about a classroom hamster that seems to have the same "helping" effect as Yoda in this title.)
A sequel,
Darth Paper Strikes Back, is newly published and available for check-out as well.
Categories: Funny Stuff,
Mystery,
Joa Recommends
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NOVEMBER 1, 2011
Read blog post by Deborah Ellis
After having the opportunity to spend the day with Deborah Ellis, thanks to our Marshalltown author visit in September, I have been happy to see lots of good reviews for her newest book, No Ordinary Day. Read what Deborah has to say about her book on this new blog post on the Teaching Books site: http://forum.teachingbooks.net/?p=6816
You can even click on a link to hear her read from the book. We currently have two copies of the book available for check out, as well as many titles that she talked about when she spoke about during her author visit.
Categories: Joa Recommends,
Social Justice Issues,
Other Cultures
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SEPTEMBER 30, 2011
TEEN/ADULT: Two inspiring reads
I recently read two non-fiction books, each very inspiring:
Whose Child is This? by Bill Wilson and
Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle. Both authors have dedicated their lives to living their faith by working daily in some of the most challenging neighborhoods in the country.
Wilson lives in a very rough part of Brooklyn, and runs one of the largest Sunday School programs in the country. Having been abandoned by his mother as a child, he has paid forward the kindness shown to him by a mechanic, who sent him to a church camp that changed his life.
Boyle is a Jesuit priest who lives in Los Angeles in the middle of gang territory. He started Homeboy Industries, a group of workplaces where former gang members are hired, often to work side by a side a former enemy. Boyle speaks about the tragic childhoods of many of these young men, who have managed to choose a different path for themselves.
Both men greatly humanize people in the most challenging of circumstances. As Boyle says, "Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it."
Both men also minimize their own "heroics" in choosing their vocations, sending the message instead that they have gained as much as they have given.
Regardless of your personal beliefs, there is something to take from these books for anyone who is interested in people...in the humanity that connects us all and how to bridge that which threatens to divide us.
Categories: Joa Recommends,
True Stories/Memoirs,
Social Justice Issues
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SEPTEMBER 29, 2011
Liberty's Voice: the Story of Emma Lazarus
This picture book biography by Erica Silverman tells the story of Emma Lazarus, who is famous for the poem that is engraved on the plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty. This book, appropriate for all ages, tells of Emma's life as a poet, including studying with Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Emma was asked to write a poem in honor of the gift of the Statue of Liberty from France to the United States. At first she thought she couldn't write a poem "to order," but then became inspired as she thought of her deep desire that newcomers to the country be welcomed and treated with respect. This inspiration became the poem containing her very famous words: "....Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore...."
Emma never knew how famous her words would become, as she died in 1887...and the poem was engraved on the base of the statue in 1903. At her funeral, a mourner wrote: "We lament the loss to humanity of a women of high ideas and noble enthusiasms, a courageous and chivalrous fighter whose lance was raised effectively in defence of the oppressed."
Categories: True Stories/Memoirs,
Teaching Tie-ins,
Joa Recommends
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SEPTEMBER 12, 2011
TEEN/ADULT: Marcelo in the Real World
This extremely well-written novel stars Marcelo Sandoval, a character who has a lot of Asperger-like proclivities, but who does not consider these indications of any kind of disability. The story follows his experience leaving the comfortable setting of his private school to work as an intern in his father's law office so he can experience (in the words of his father) the "real world."
A lot of what he learns about the "real world" is disheartening, but the beauty of this book is the privilege of following Marcelo's thought processes as he decides how to cope and adapt without losing himself.
This book leaves you committed to the idea that the opposite of normal is not necessarily abnormal, that sometimes what some call a "symptom" another may call a "gift," and that the "real world" needs more people like Marcelo.
This book received a starred review in nearly every library journal where it was reviewed, as well as multiple awards. It is also on the 2011-12 Iowa Highschool Battle of the Books list, and will be a book discussion choice at the local book club, LOL @ MHS, in November, 2011.
Categories: Joa Recommends,
Realistic Reads,
Awards
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JULY 20, 2011
The Trouble with Chickens
The Trouble with Chickens is a funny book for beginning chapter book readers. The book, written by Doreen Cronin (
Diary of a Fly, Diary of a Spider, and Click, Clack, Moo, Cows That Type) has great cartoonish illustrations throughout by Kevin Cornell.
Categories: Funny Stuff,
Joa Recommends,
Animal Stories
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MARCH 18, 2011
Holocaust history book reads like fiction
The new youth non-fiction book:
Surviving the Angel of Death: the true story of a Mengele twin by Eva Mozes Kor and Lisa Rojany Buccieri is written as engagingly as any fiction book. The heart-breaking content makes you wish that it was fiction.
Eva Mozes Kor and her twin sister, Miriam, were one of many, many pairs of twins that faced sadistic and unbelievably cruel treatment at the hands of the infamous Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele of Auschwitz. The book is geared toward intermediate and teen readers, so while the content is disturbing, the details are not as graphic as an adult book on Holocaust horrors.
Eva tells the story of her childhood leading up to the sisters' lives at the concentration camp, while anti-Jewish sentiment increased in her small Hungarian village. The kinds of details included, like story problems in her elementary math textbook that referenced killing Jews, are chilling.
After losing the entire rest of her family, Eva was motivated by sheer will to survive with her sister during her time in Auschwitz and the aftermath. The story is amazing...not only the horrors they survive, but the triumph of the human spirit and ultimately, of forgiveness.
Categories: Historical Reads,
Teaching Tie-ins,
Joa Recommends
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FEBRUARY 9, 2011
Little-known history (at least for me)
I just finished reading the novel in verse,
The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle, based on the history of Cuba's wars for independence, and on the real life of Rosa la Bayamesa, a healer who used her gifts to heal rebels, as well as (her enemy) Spanish soldiers.
Engle is really masterful at using this writing style to pull you into the history, as she did in a similar historical novel in verse,
The Poet Slave of Cuba, that I read last year. The story in
Surrender Tree is very suspenseful, and you learn a lot about the history of Cuba, including that Spain was responsible for the first modern use of "reconcentration" (or internment) camps in warfare during their fight against the Cuban people. The book ends showing the origin of the rocky relationship between US and Cuba, that continues to this day.
I would strongly recommend this book...and because of the poetry format, it is a very fast read. This book was also awarded the Pura Belpre honor award in 2009.
Categories: Historical Reads,
Joa Recommends,
Other Cultures
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JANUARY 6, 2011
Enjoyed reading Wild Girl
I just finished reading Wild Girl by Patricia Reilly Giff, which is on this year's Battle of the Books list for Lenihan/MACS and thought it was really a great book.
The novel tells the story of a spirited girl, Lidie, who is finally moving to the United States from a small farm in Brazil, to join her father and her older brother. Lidie was left behind to live with her aunt and uncle, while her father worked in the horse training and racing industry to build a life after Lidie's mother died.
Lidie is so excited to finally be united with Pai (her father), and her brother Rafael, but the transition is harder than she imagined. Much like the filly, Wild Girl, Lidie has been taken away from everything she'd ever known and thrust into a strange world.
While there is a horse on the cover of this book, and life on a horse ranch is part of the plotline, the real story here is how Lidie begins to know her father and brother again and find her place in her new world. I think people of all ages would enjoy this story.
Categories: Joa Recommends,
Other Cultures,
Realistic Reads
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DECEMBER 16, 2010
Would be a good read aloud
I recommend
Word After Word After Word by Patricia MacLachlan. It is a very short chapter book, but I think people of all ages would enjoy it (elementary through adult.) It is pretty much about how everybody has something unique to say...and has a story inside them to write.
MacLachlan, who wrote the
Sarah Plain and Tall series, among other books, is a very poetic writer. Her sparse words always have a powerful impact. I also love her two picture books:
All the Places to Love and
What You Know First.
I think
Word After Word After Word would also make a good read-aloud for a family, or a classroom, especially tied in with a creative writing unit or activity.
Categories: Joa Recommends,
Teaching Tie-ins,
Realistic Reads
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OCTOBER 26, 2010
RIP: Eva Ibbotson
I was sad to see that a great author,
Eva Ibbotson, died today at 85 years old. She is the author of two favorite books of mine,
Island of the Aunts and
The Star of Kazan. I also know quite a few readers, including my daughter Kennedy, who name
Journey to the River Sea as a favorite. We have many more of her books, as well as some books to listen to on CD.
Island of the Aunts has one of my favorite openings of any book: "Kidnapping children is not a good idea. All the same, sometimes it has to be done." This is a like Roald-Dahl-but-nicer story that has a great message, interesting characters, is suspenseful AND, best of all, has a kraken in it.
Categories: FYI,
Joa Recommends,
Fantasy
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OCTOBER 21, 2010
Clapping Games good for you
I just read an article about how those clapping games (like Miss Mary Mack) that kids do at recess held build good hand-writing and other skills. I always like when I learn that something that's just fun....is also good for you!
See
www.funclapping.com for rhymes you might know, and new ones. Or check out this one on you tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz0dSnaTs2g.
Categories: Stuff to Do,
Joa Recommends
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OCTOBER 14, 2010
The Book of Totally Irresponsible Science
I just returned a new science experiment book that has a lot of great hands-on ideas from blubber gloves to rockets to making a hovercraft out of a recycled CD. I think people of all ages that like to learn about tricks you can do using science would really enjoy this book. You can find this book as well as other science experiment books in Juvenile Nonfiction under the number J 507.8.
Categories: Joa Recommends,
Teaching Tie-ins,
Stuff to Do
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OCTOBER 5, 2010
TEEN READ: Girl in the Arena
I'd recommend the newer book,
Girl in the Arena by Lise Haines, to people who like the Hunger Games, Graceling, Tamora Pierce, the Uglies series, Maximum Ride, and other action books featuring strong heroines.
With a few futuristic touches, this dystopian novel has a pretty contemporary feel, with the exception of the inclusion of a reality-tv-like Gladiator subculture, where gladiators fight (often to the death) for mass entertainment. The Gladiator lifestyle is simultaneously revered and scorned by the overall society.
Lyn is the daughter of seven gladiators. As is common in Glad culture, Lyn's mother remarries a new Gladiator each time she is widowed. The book opens as her current and favorite father, Tommy, prepares to go into the arena. When the winning gladiator claims Lyn's dowry bracelet (worn by Tommy for good luck), the Gladiator Sports Association (GSA) tries to force her to marry the victor.
Lyn is a fiesty and likable character who is determined not to let the powerful GSA control her life. She is equally determined to protect her younger brother, Thad, whose special needs make him especially vulnerable. If you can get past the author's confusing use of dashes, instead of quotation marks to denote dialogue, this is a pretty exciting and suspenseful read.
Categories: Survival/Adventure,
Fantasy,
Joa Recommends
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AUGUST 11, 2010
Judy Moody on the big screen!
Next summer, a
Judy Moody movie, based on the book series by Megan McDonald, will hit the big screen.
This is the tenth anniversary of the start of the book series about the character, Judy, who is somewhere in between Ramona and Junie B. Jones in her adventurous, and sometimes mischievous personality. There is also a spin-off series, at a little lower reading level, about her younger brother, Stink.
Check out the
Judy Moody website for info about all the books, joining a fan club, and fun stuff to do. And of course, check out books and books on CD, including the newest book coming out this month:
Judy Moody, Girl Detective.
Categories: Movie Tie-ins,
Funny Stuff,
Joa Recommends
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JULY 12, 2010
Read Fablehaven
If you are looking for a new fantasy series to read, you might enjoy
Fablehaven (also the name of the first book) by Brandon Mull. This series is about a brother and sister who are sent to stay with their grandparents, only to discover that their grandparents are the caretakers of a magical, secret preserve of all kinds of fantastical creatures.
This series has been enjoyed by several library staff members, and has recommendations printed on the book cover by science fiction great, Orson Scott Card, as well as Obert Skye, author of the
Leven Thumps series. I'd say that readers who have enjoyed series like
Magyck (Septimus Heap books) by Angie Sage,
The Magic Thief series by Sarah Prineas,
Island of the Aunts by Eva Ibbotson, and
Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins, would also really enjoy
Fablehaven.
Categories: Joa Recommends,
Fantasy
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JULY 7, 2010
Invention of Hugo Cabret movie!
I'm very excited that the excellent book,
Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick will be a movie, directed by Martin Scorsese.
This novel is a winner of multiple awards, including this past school year's Iowa Children's Choice award and the Caldecott for the powerful drawings that make this chapter book really unique. For more info on the storyline, see my earlier review on this blog.
Categories: Movie Tie-ins,
Joa Recommends
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