Stacked Shelves

Oh, Gary Schmidt, I am torn about your new book. You tried to do something with What Came From the Stars and it doesn’t work. That’s not to say that there were parts of this book that were beautifully written and definitely what I would expect for you (I loved Okay for Now ). But, boy, did you need an editor. There’s far too much going on in this book. First, that parallel story running in this book? You know, the battles on the distant planet. The world creation. The crazy words. To paraphrase Senator Lloyd Bentsen, Gary Schmidt, you are no J.R.R. Tolkien. I’ve read Tolkien, and you are not Tolkien Actually, the whole distant-planet story is a little too reminiscent of the tale Tolkien tells in The Silmarillion . In Tolkien’s world, the Valar (you call them Valorim) create a world for elves and men (you call them Ethelim and O’Mondin), but there’s this bad guy called Melkor (you use the name Mondus). Melkor destroys lots of things and causes the Valar to move out of Midd...

Jessica Khoury’s Origin , which has gotten good reviews from journals like Kirkus , is a great gateway book. And by this I mean that it can lead librarians and teens, or teachers and teens, to a host of other books and start great discussions. I mean no disrespect to Ms. Khoury when I say that I was reminded of several other books while reading Origin . This is not to say the story is not, excuse the word, original. In some ways, it is. But it also has a little of Flowers for Algernon (by Daniel Keyes) and The House of the Scorpion (by Nancy Farmer) in it. There’s even a Romeo and Juliet- like scene near the end, and there’s a sequence of native Amazonians dancing that reminded me of Peter Pan visiting Tiger Lily’s camp (I’m sorry to say). Origin tells the story of Pia, an immortal girl. She was created through years of genetic research and lives deep in the Amazon forest, where scientists working for the Corpus conglomerate have kept her hidden (and imprisoned). Pia longs for t...

Remember the old J.K. Rowling web site? The one me and hundreds (thousands?) of teens and kids (other adults?) used to pore over as we waited for the next book to come out? It opened with a picture of her desktop, and you could click on gum wrappers, paperclips, her date book and then cool things would happen. It was neat. Eighth Grade Is Making Me Sick , a new book by Jennifer Holm and illustrated by Elicia Castaldi, reminds me a lot of that site (which no longer exists, by the way). Each two-page spread is a snapshot of what’s going on in Ginny Davis’s life. The story is told entirely through photos, notes, Ginny’s poetry assignments, comic strips, and other odds and ends. It’s an interesting format and a very quick read. At first I had wished there was more to Ginny’s story--she’s a likable character—but then I realized that the form fit the function. Tweens will appreciate every last detail of Ginny’s life as they pore over each page. The story has a good arc, there's ...

Early in my reading of A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix, I said, oh, this is a poor man's version of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game --less violent, less anguishing, far simpler. And now that I've finished it, I'm going to stick to that assessment. Somewhat. That's not to say it isn't a good story or that it is a retelling of Ender's Game . It is a good story, for what it is. And it really isn't Ender's Game . For, alas, it lacks passion and dramatic conflict. Prince Khemri is one of the chosen leaders for the empire and he has been raised in isolation under special circumstances: His body and his mind have been enhanced. He is, truly, faster, smarter, and stronger than other humans. Of course, there are thousands of other "princes" just like him, especially selected to rule the empire. Once Khemri is old enough, he's put into training with other princes (and here's where the book is similar to Ender's Game ). But som...

I have a little wish: I would like novelists writing for children to stop making the kids sound older than they are. I read One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt last night and really like it. As I tweeted when I finished it, the book has a tough ending. It makes perfect sense and it's not a totally sad ending, but it's a bit heart-breaking to those of us who want a super-happy-ending, especially for this book's particular protagonist. It made me cry. Carley Connors is foster child -- her mom is recovering from severe abuse delivered by her husband (Carley's step-dad). She's never been in foster care before, but she has known hardship as she and her mother lived on next to nothing in Las Vegas. Now in Connecticut, Carley is taken in by a loving woman who has a husband and three sons. The Murphys aren't perfect by any means and not all of them want Carley in their family, but by the end of the book, something better than a mere co-existence has formed. T...

I read two new books recently that deal with the death of a child and how that death affects others in the family. If you haven't read See You at Harry’s , by Jo Knowles, sorry for the spoiler. But don’t let the fact that I’ve just told you someone dies keep you from reading it. It’s a great book. (Another to add to the list I’m keeping of possible Newbery contenders: Wonder , The One and Only Ivan , The Lions of Little Rock , Crow and The Mighty Miss Malone . I haven’t read the last two yet, but they look like good books.) The book jacket will tell you that the family suffers a tragedy and that perhaps our narrator is to blame. She’s not. Fern, 12, suffers early on in the book from being ignored and being a tween. Her father is too busy running the family ice cream shop, her mother is too busy taking care of 3-year-old Charlie and locking herself in her office when she needs to meditate, her older sister Sara is too busy trying to figure out what she should do now that she...

I believe I have found my Flavia de Luce for tweens. Sheila Turnage’s Three Times Lucky isn’t quite a mystery in the Nancy Drew sense -- it's better. Her heroine Mo LoBeau attempts to discover who murdered an ornery old neighbor, while also searching for lost pets and lost parents. She’s smart, industrious, and sassy. I loved that Turnage lets Mo experience real emotions (like getting sick with shock when she finds her guardian missing). And that her sidekick Dale doesn’t let Mo play the orphaned kid card all the time. As Dale, the child of a alcoholic father, tells her, they're all throwaways. It looks as though Turnage might revisit the town of Tupelo Landing, North Carolina, in the future – her website hints at it. But I hope murder doesn’t follow Mo around. She deserves to be more than Miss Marple.