Non-fiction book review - Ours to Share

Ours to Share by Kari Jones

Jones covers a great deal of group living in a handful of pages. This means that this is a simple overview but that's to be expected. Anything beyond an overview of the history of community becomes pretty complicated pretty quickly. Jones walks us through different forms of early society with a special focus on shared resources. It's the modern era, of course, that gets the most focus and that changes format. In the modern era we look at the difficulties of living in communities and the problems sharing resources. This highlights a serious and complex issue in a way accessible to young kids.
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Book review - Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky

Title: Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky
Author: Kwame Mbalia
Genre: fantasy/mythology
Similar books: Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi
                      The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste
Rating:

a delightful reimagining

Summary (provided by publisher): Seventh grader Tristan Strong feels anything but strong ever since he failed to save his best friend when they were in a bus accident together. All he has left of Eddie is the journal his friend wrote stories in. Tristan is dreading the month he's going to spend on his grandparents' farm in Alabama, where he's being sent to heal from the tragedy. But on his first night there, a sticky creature shows up in his bedroom and steals Eddie's notebook. Tristan chases after it--is that a doll?--and a tug-of-war ensues between them underneath a Bottle Tree. In a last attempt to wrestle the journal out of the creature's hands, Tristan punches the tree, accidentally ripping open a chasm into the MidPass, a volatile place with a burning sea, haunted bone ships, and iron monsters that are hunting the inhabitants of this world. Tristan finds himself in the middle of a battle that has left black American folk heroes John Henry and Brer Rabbit exhausted. In order to get back home, Tristan and these new allies will need to entice the god Anansi, the Weaver, to come out of hiding and seal the hole in the sky. But bartering with the trickster Anansi always comes at a price. Can Tristan save this world before he loses more of the things he loves?

My opinion: If you're familiar with Rick Riordan, you probably know what to expect from this book. A normal kid finds himself thrown into a world of mythology. The difference with this series, of course, is that Tristan is not a demi-god. In fact, there aren't many gods in this book. These are mostly legendary figures with god-like powers. John Henry, Brer Rabbit, that sort of thing. So Tristan's tie to their world is more related to personality and internal traits than blood. He starts out as an average kid, simply dealing with big issues: grief, parental expectations, fear and anger. Mbalia is exploring not specific stories so much as the role of storytelling in culture, how it morphs overtime but still ties us to our past. With a solid cast of characters and just the right amount of complexity for a middle grade novel, I consider this one a must read.
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Book review - Under the Broken Sky

Title: Under the Broken Sky
Author: Mariko Nagai
Genre: historical fiction/verse novel
Similar books: The Taste of Rain by Monique Polak
                      The Art of Taxidermy by Sharon Kernot
Rating:

lovely insight into a little recognized perspective

Summary (provided by publisher): Twelve-year-old Natsu and her family live a quiet farm life in Manchuria, near the border of the Soviet Union. But the life they’ve known begins to unravel when her father is recruited to the Japanese army, and Natsu and her little sister, Cricket, are left orphaned and destitute.
In a desperate move to keep her sister alive, Natsu sells Cricket to a Russian family following the 1945 Soviet occupation. The journey to redemption for Natsu's broken family is rife with struggles, but Natsu is tenacious and will stop at nothing to get her little sister back.
Literary and historically insightful, this is one of the great untold stories of WWII. Much like the Newbery Honor book Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai, Mariko Nagai's Under the Broken Sky is powerful, poignant, and ultimately hopeful.

My opinion: We tend to get a lot of books about WWII, usually about persecution in Europe or resistance groups in Germany or France. Seldom to we read about other people whose lives were entirely changed by the war. We don't get regular citizens just trying to live in Germany or Japan, people who are loyal to their government. Good citizens, not committing atrocities, caught up in something larger than them. In this case we have Japanese citizens in China, children who have lived their entire lives in this occupied territory, suddenly in terrible dangers as Japan begins to lose the war. Children who are essentially on a death march. It's much like the stories we read of Jews fleeing Europe, walking through the night, sick and starving. And that's what makes it important. This is not a story about ideologies but about the general horrors of war, of being stripped of dignity and humanity. This could be used to great affect as a supplementary text.
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Pick 6: Magic

Spells, faeries, witches, giants. Magical elements seem to resonate with young readers and there are some really excellent fantasy novels being written for them. Here are six books published in the past six months that feature magic. In honor of Halloween, these magical books have more of a spooky air to them.

6 new magical novels

1. A Small Zombie Problem by K G Campbell
2. Hotel Dare by Terry Blas
3. The Oddmire by William Ritter
4. Here There Are Monsters by Amelinda Berube
5. Witchy by Ariel Slamel Ries
6. His Hideous Heart edited by Dahlia Adler

Non-fiction book review - Brave With Beauty

Brave With Beauty by Maxine Rose Schur

Goharshad is an historical figure I'd never heard of before, which is a real shame because her story is fascinating. Living in a world that did not value the feminine, she did not make her mark by embracing the masculine. Instead, she found ways to encourage the things that she valued in society - beauty and fairness instead of aggression and self-importance. Young readers will learn from Goharshad's story the values of beauty and of being true to yourself.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Book review - The Grace Year

Title: The Grace Year
Author: Kim Liggett
Genre: dystopia
Similar books: How We Became Wicked by Alexander Yates
                      Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Rating:

dark but brilliant

Summary (provided by publisher): Survive the year.
No one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden.
In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That’s why they’re banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive.
Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life—a society that doesn’t pit friend against friend or woman against woman, but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it’s not just the brutal elements they must fear. It’s not even the poachers in the woods, men who are waiting for a chance to grab one of the girls in order to make a fortune on the black market. Their greatest threat may very well be each other.
With sharp prose and gritty realism, The Grace Year examines the complex and sometimes twisted relationships between girls, the women they eventually become, and the difficult decisions they make in-between. 

My opinion: Let's be frank: the plot of this book is grim and cruel. There's blatant death and violence. Liggett doesn't hold back in portraying repression and the cruelty women inflict upon one another. This is a society where females have absolutely no freedom. They can't even have friendships. So, when they are given a year of absolute freedom, they turn on each other rather than banding together and fighting their oppression. They wield their small amount of power as a weapon against their peers. I got a little frustrated by all of the twists, the ways that the plot seems to constantly circle back on itself. The ending isn't neat and tidy but rather a first step towards change for the future.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.

Book review - Mr. Penguin and the Fotress of Secrets

Title: Mr. Penguin and the Fortress of Secrets
Author: Alex T. Smith
Genre: early chapter book
Similar books: Fabio, the World's BestGreatest Flamingo Detective by Laura James
                      Snazzy Cat Capers by Deanna Kent
Rating:

Silly fun

Summary (provided by publisher): From the international bestselling creator of Claude comes a brand new hero: Mr Penguin. Indiana Jones meets Hercule Poirot in this series from Alex T. Smith. Follow Mr Penguin and Colin as they crash-land on a snowy mountain. Will they be able to solve the mystery of the missing pets? What are the strange noises coming from the abandoned fortress? And will Mr Penguin conquer his fear of flying?Find out in the second Mr Penguin book with plenty of slapstick humour, mystery and adventure. Highly illustrated throughout with a striking black and orange design.

My opinion: I had a few reserves about this book, mostly because I didn't love book one as much as I'd hoped. Book one was less cheeky with a more focused plot than Smith's previous series. I'm glad I gave this one a chance, because it's much stronger than the introductory volume. Now that we've met the characters and their world is established Smith has more room to develop the plot. And since he's more familiar with the characters, he's beginning to hit the perfect humor notes, just the right level of nonsense. So we get a bit more of the silly humor and oddball elements we saw in Claude the dog but with a more adventure focused plot.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.