Book review - Bee Bakshi and the Gingerbread Sisters

 

Title: Bee Bakshi and the Gingerbread Sisters

Author: Emi Pinto

Genre: magical realism

Similar books: Ravenous Things by Derrick Chow

                      Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu

Rating:

 

a unique take on a familiar tale

Summary (provided by publisher): Bee wanted to spend the summer reading Betsy Chillers books and exploring the new spooky theme park with her best friend. Instead, she’s spending the summer trapped at Storm Lake with her too loud, too thrifty, and too Indian family.
Luckily, Bee finds a place to escape her embarrassment—a magical house across the lake that transforms her into the cool girl she always wanted to be. Maybe cottage life isn’t so bad after all! But strange dreams are haunting Bee, and there’s a chill in her bones she just can’t shake.
Bee follows her hunch—and the scent of gingerbread—to Lucas, the dorky boy next door. He thinks there are ghosts in the forest, but new friend Alina tells her what Bee has feared all along: There’s a witch at Storm Lake. And she’s coming for Bee.

My opinion: This books takes Hansel and Gretel as it's central premise but does a lot to make it unique. There are many elements here unique to this story. Yes, there is a witch who takes children. But there's also social pressure, magical loons, an abandoned house on an island, ghosts, and lots of magic. It's far more complex magic than we see in the original story. And it does a lot more to explore interpersonal relationships and motivations. It's perhaps a bit odd, a bit reliant on some peculiar details, but remains worth reading.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Listen with me

 

Dust by Dusti Bowling

Take a real situation and insert a hint of the supernatural. If done right, it's a formula that can be amazing. If you've read Ingrid Law's Savvy you've seen it done right. And the same can be said of Dust. The key here is that the central problems are based in the world as we know it. Avalyn is an outsider in middle school, coping with chronic medical issues and constant bullying. These are standard, relatable issues. So, unfortunately, is abuse. That's a tough topic to introduce in a middle grade book but Bowling does not shy away from the difficult. While the discussion is not explicit it is certainly present. More important than the specifics of the abuse, though, are the emotions associated. We see the trauma of the abused child, of course, but also how the knowledge and sense of helplessness affects Avalyn. This is a cast of characters with complex emotions and depth that serves the plot well.

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Non fiction book review - The Mona Lisa Vanishes

 

The Mona Lisa Vanishes by Nicholas Day

This is a moment in history that I had heard about, though I suspect it is not something most will find familiar. Even with some familiarity, though, this book was a delight to read. Firstly, it talks about far more than the theft itself. We learn a great deal about Da Vinci, the history of the Louvre, art theft in general, news media, and the general social implications of the painting and it's theft throughout history. And the writing itself is charming. The tone is conversational with a solid dose of humor. It's easily digested and compelling.

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Book review - After You Vanished

 

Title: After You Vanished

Author: E. A. Neeves

Genre: realistic fiction

Similar books: We Told Six Lies by Victoria Scott

                     Paper Towns by John Green

Rating:

 

defied some expectations

Summary (provided by publisher): Teddy’s favorite place is Bottomrock Lake, where sunfish swim in their little saucer nests and lilypads edge the shore. She’s worked there as a lifeguard every summer, including last year, when her twin sister Izzy waded into the lake for a midnight swim and never came out. Now, Teddy can’t stop scripting stories for where she went. Izzy was an accomplished swimmer, so she couldn’t possibly have drowned. And if she did somehow drown, where’s her body and why is her passport missing?
When Toby, the gorgeous jerk who was with Izzy on the night she vanished, comes to Bottomrock to work as a lifeguard alongside Teddy, she can’t help but be suspicious. How many of her sister’s secrets does he hold? And how can Teddy unearth them—without falling for the boy who watched her sister disappear?

My opinion: (Alert - here there be mild spoilers) At first, this seemed like it was set up to be a standard missing person narrative. Teddy and Toby track down secrets and threads that seemed to stymie the police. We expect them to uncover a vast conspiracy. Or people desperate to cover up dark secrets. Some of their clues sure point in that direction. But that's not really what this book is about. It's a story about grief and personal secrets. About discovering who your sister really was and realizing that you never know everything about a person. It's about accepting truth. And also about accepting things that you can't know and finding a way forward. It becomes a more introspective and thus a more realistic story.

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Book review - The Dark Lord's Daughter

 

Title: The Dark Lord's Daughter

Author: Patricia C. Wrede

Genre: fantasy

Similar books: Dark Lord by Jamie Thomson

                      Dr. Critchlore's School for Minions by Sheila Grau

Rating:

 

a fun twist

Summary (provided by publisher): Kayla is just an ordinary girl . . . or so she thinks. When a day at the state fair is interrupted by the news that she’s the daughter of a “Dark Lord,” she and her family are quickly whisked to another world—one that’s chock-full of magic but lacking in technology!
As her family encounters fantastical creatures in place of their Earthly gadgets, Kayla must prepare for the unpreparable: meeting her father, the Dark Lord himself, for the very first time. All Kayla wants is to go home, but she must learn magic to do so. The catch? For the Dark Lord’s daughter, the road to mastering magic is filled with evil traditions.
As she ventures closer to her father, Kayla must decide whether to accept her birthright. Is she destined for darkness? Or can she become a new kind of Dark Lady?

My opinion: We read plenty of books about characters who find they are "the chosen one". But what if the thing you're chosen for is evil? That's the central problem at the heart of this book. In a turn not unlike Pratchett and Gaiman's Good Omens, though, Kayla has been raised by a "normal" family. Thus, she has pretty average and sensible approaches to what should be dramatic problems. She's also a girl after my own heart. When told she must do something her first reaction is to ask "why". And she's strong-willed enough to resist tradition and forge a new path. A fun story for fantasy fans and kids unafraid to forge their own path.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Listen With Me

 

Dust by Dusti Bowling

I've read a couple of Bowling's books before and they're typically a solid narrative with reasonable characters. This one promises a blend of interpersonal issues and the potential for magical realism. Let's find out.

Book review - Bright

 

Title: Bright

Author: Brigit Young

Similar books: Fifty-four Things Wrong With Gwendolyn Rogers by Caela Carter

                     Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

Rating: 

 

a solid read

 

Summary (provided by publisher): Marianne Blume has always known she’s not smart.

 After years of trying and trying at school, she’s mastered the art of getting by on a combination of luck, deflection, and her winning personality—that is, until she lands in the classroom of Mr. Garcia. Suddenly she’s at risk of flunking his class, repeating the eighth grade, and getting left behind by her best friend, Skyla. To receive much-needed extra credit and get into high school, Marianne makes the desperate decision to join her school’s Quiz Quest team, only to find out that her teammates have problems of their own—and that they need to win for her to get the credit.

Now Marianne will need to try—like, actually try—for the first time in her life, while also helping her teammates pull it together. Can Marianne learn to be smart? What does it mean to be “bright,” anyway? And will she be left in eighth grade forever?

My opinion: Young certainly isn't the first author to tackle the affect of labels on students. Even so, this book handles the topic well. Not only are we looking at the affect of other people's perception on behaviors, but the character's own self-labeling. We see how each aspect of the problem, especially years of falling behind, compound and create a nearly insurmountable school issue. While the ending is fairly predictable, the characters are dynamic and relatable.

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