Book review - Between Before and After

Title: Between Before and After
Author: Maureen Doyle McQuerry
Genre: historical fiction
Similar books: Lord of the Mountain by Ronald Kidd
                      The Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz
Rating:

a bit of a mixed bag

Summary (provided by publisher): “The carnage began with the roses. She hacked at their ruffled blooms until they dropped into monstrous drifts of red on the parched yellow lawn … Only two things kept my mother grounded to us: my uncle Stephen and stories.”
Fourteen-year-old Molly worries about school, friends, and her parents’ failed marriage, but mostly about her mother’s growing depression. Molly knows her mother is nursing a carefully-kept secret. A writer with an obsession for other people’s life stories, Elaine Donnelly is the poster child of repressed emotions.
Molly spends her California summer alternately watching out for her little brother Angus and tip-toeing around her mother’s raw feelings. Molly needs her mother more than ever, but Elaine shuts herself off from real human connections and buries herself in the lives and deaths of the strangers she writes about. When Uncle Stephen is pressed into the limelight because of his miracle cure of a young man, Elaine can no longer hide behind other people’s stories. And as Molly digs into her mother’s past, she finds a secret hidden in her mother’s dresser that may be the key to unlocking a family mystery dating to 1918 New York—a secret that could destroy or save their future.
Told in dual narratives between 1918 New York City and 1955 San Jose, California, Between Before and After, by award-winning author Maureen McQuerry, explores the nature of family secrets, resiliency, and redemption. This is an historical coming-of-age Young Adult story about the complex bonds between mothers and daughters.

My opinion: Initially, I was very into this book. I loved the back and forth perspectives, the way information revealed in Elaine's story  influenced the events in Molly's story. I was certainly intrigued by the promise of a big secret in New York that would provide final context for the California story. And that's why the moment when Molly learns the truth about the boarding school was a bit of a disappointment. It took the impact out of the big reveal. 
The miracle aspect was unique. I liked that the focus was less on whether miracles are real and more on how destructive the claim of a miracle can actually be. Here are these lives that are totally disrupted and family secrets that are nearly revealed to the world based on intense public scrutiny. And the pressure of being a "miracle child" leads the boy to take an insane risk. A mixed bag of expected plot points and interesting explorations.

More information: Between Before and After releases February 5.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.

Ballister is much cooler than Jack Sparrow

I was very excited this week to hear that there is a Nimona movie slated for 2020. 

It was the motivation I needed to finish a projects I've had in the works for a while now: an action figure of Ballister Blackheart. I used an figure of Captain Jack Sparrow as the base.

 I had to cut off his coat and most of his hair. I also whittled down his arm to give it more of a robotic appearance. Paint and some red fabric for a cape finished it off.

Non fiction book review - Creative Coding in Python

Creative Coding in Python by Sheena Vaidyanathan

I've read a handful of kid's Python books since my own introduction to the coding language. Of them all, this is probably my favorite. Each concept is explained in a straight-forward but not overly simplified way and then reinforced with exercises. And not only are there step by step projects, there are also challenges. These are ideas that you could solve using the introduced concepts, but the method is left up to the reader. Kids are encouraged to experiment, to make mistakes, and try again. It's easy to take these introduced ideas and imagine how one might build upon them to create more complex projects. A great choice for your middle grader who is showing and interest in programming.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.

Book review - Frequency

Title: Frequency
Author: Christopher Krovatinn
Genre: fairy tale retelling
Similar books: All Our Pretty Songs by Sarah McCarry
                      Sweetly by Jackson Pearce
Rating:

a darker version of a familiar story

Summary (provided by publisher):  Nine years ago, Fiona was just a kid. But everything changed the night the Pit Viper came to town. Sure, he rid the quiet, idyllic suburb of Hamm of its darkest problems. But Fiona witnessed something much, much worse from Hamm's adults when they drove him away.
And now, the Pit Viper is back.
Fiona's not just a kid anymore. She can handle the darkness she sees in the Pit Viper, a DJ whose wicked tattoos, quiet anger, and hypnotic music seem to speak to every teen in town…except her. She can handle watching as each of her friends seems to be overcome, nearly possessed by the music. She can even handle her unnerving suspicion that the DJ is hell-bent on revenge.
But she's not sure she can handle falling in love with him.

My opinion: When authors retell the story of the Pied Piper, they usually focus one one of two elements: the Piper's motivation or the mechanics by which he steals the children. Krovatin examines both of these ideas. We're presented with a Piper who's motivated by revenge and an increase in power. He also must follow the whims of a master. Krovatin also gives a lot of real estate to the motivations of the villagers. We see the fear that drove the original deal, their desperation and the need to protect their children from "bad elements". It's a desperation that leads them to offer that which they cannot give, so they betray their deal, sealing their eventual fate. As the plot becomes more complex, though, these complexities become more shadowy. We're introduced to a sort of magic, some elemental universal force that has twisted the piper into a dark force. But that exploration is pretty surface. This mythology takes us out of the real world into dark forces that are harder to relate to as a modern reader.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.

Painted bouquet

For me, the new year means a chance to try out some new crafts. I've messed around with watercolor paint previously, of course, but this is the first time I added ink into the mix. It has a few issues, places where the paint pooled in weird ways, but I kind of like how this turned out. It's a combination I'll try again.

 

Book review - Song for a Whale

Title: Song for a Whale
Author: Lynne Kelly
Genre: realistic fiction
Similar books: Fleabrain Loves Franny by Joanne Rocklin
                      The Danger Box by Blue Balliett
Rating:

utterly charming

Summary (provided by publisher): From fixing the class computer to repairing old radios, twelve-year-old Iris is a tech genius. But she's the only deaf person in her school, so people often treat her like she's not very smart. If you've ever felt like no one was listening to you, then you know how hard that can be.
When she learns about Blue 55, a real whale who is unable to speak to other whales, Iris understands how he must feel. Then she has an idea: she should invent a way to "sing" to him! But he's three thousand miles away. How will she play her song for him?
Full of heart and poignancy, this affecting story by sign language interpreter Lynne Kelly shows how a little determination can make big waves.

My opinion: The metaphor here is pretty obvious: Iris and Blue 55 are the same. They are caught between two worlds, neither of which really understand them. Iris learns from Blue to keep trying to connect with others who seem fundamentally different from her. Blue learns from Iris that persistence pays off, that someone will provide you with a reason to hope. The other, subtler, message is that there's no such thing as perfect understanding, that sometimes close to the same frequency has to be good enough and everyone has to put in a little extra effort. This is a beautiful, well written story with a compelling plot and a healthy does of science masterfully mixed in. The climax is a bit fantastic but doesn't diminish the beauty of the rest of the book.

More information: Song for a Whale releases February 5.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.

Graphic novel spotlight - Asterix

the Asterix series by Rene Goscinny

Asterix is considered a classic of French comics (not terribly unlike Tintin is to the Belgians). And with good reason. These comics deftly combine humor, action, and magic in an easily digestible package. The stories can be understood and enjoyed at a surface level by late elementary school readers and each book sits around 60 pages, the sweet spot for kids just getting interested in graphic novels. When viewed by older readers, one begins to realize the depth of the humor. Many of the names are puns and there are a number of cultural and topical references that will be missed by young readers. It's not the most sophisticated series out there but it's a solid choice when you're looking for something other than capes for your young readers.