Non-fiction book review - Carter Reads the Newspaper

Carter Reads the Newspaper by Deborah Hopkinson

Early in this book, Hopkinson refers to Carter Woodson as "a hero we often forget." I'd argue he's an hero we've never heard of. His was a name entirely unfamiliar to me and that is an absolute shame. What a compelling life story. This is a story of doing what is necessary to achieve your dreams, no matter how hard you have to work. Through his life, Carter  worked around, through, or with his limitations. He saw challenges as sources of strength. In this book we not only get Carter Woodson as an example of persistence, we get the brief story of Oliver Jones, a man who opened his home and kept himself and his peers informed by whatever means possible. Several times in this narrative, Hopkinson gently points out to the reader how much one can achieve simply by being aware of the larger world. This easily understood book will resonate with young children and middle graders alike.

More information: Carter Reads the Newspaper releases February 1.
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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.

 

Non-fiction book review - A Win for Women

A Win For Women by Brandon Terrell

Having grown up in the 90's, I was vaguely aware that the "Battle of the Sexes" had been a thing. If pressed, I might have been able to tell you that Billie Jean King beat some guy in a tennis match and that it was somehow related to the existence of sports teams for girls. I had never heard the details, and that's what we get in this book: a brief overview of the details for young readers. We learn about the history of both players, that Bobby Riggs was an aging champ while Billie Jean King was a rising star. We learn about the previous challenge, the "Mother's Day Massacre", in which Riggs beat the top female player at the time. And we learn how Riggs basically shamed King into accepting his challenge, turning the entire match into something of a media circus. We learn that more people watched the Battle of the Sexes than the Superbowl that year. And we learn exactly how King beat Riggs, how she had trained for the match and basically wore him down on the court. We learn how this one match changed the entire landscape of sports. And most importantly, I think, we learn that there were no long term hard feelings between the players. If the pre-match events were spectacle and trash talk, post match was the epitome of good sportsmanship. Terrell accomplishes all of this in just 32 pages. A great choice for any young reader, sports fan or no.   
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Book review - Come Find Me

Title: Come Find Me
Author: Megan Miranda
Genre: mystery
Similar books: The Telling by Alexandra Sirowy
                      Evidence of Things Not Seen by Lindsey Lane
Rating:

the thinking person's mystery

Summary (provided by publisher): After surviving an infamous family tragedy, sixteen-year-old Kennedy Jones has made it her mission to keep her brother's search through the cosmos alive. But then something disturbs the frequency on his radio telescope--a pattern registering where no signal should transmit.
In a neighboring county, seve.nteen-year-old Nolan Chandler is determined to find out what really happened to his brother, who disappeared the day after Nolan had an eerie premonition. There hasn't been a single lead for two years, until Nolan picks up an odd signal--a pattern coming from his brother's bedroom.
Drawn together by these strange signals--and their family tragedies--Kennedy and Nolan search for the origin of the mysterious frequency. But the more they uncover, the more they believe that everything's connected--even their pasts--as it appears the signal is meant for them alone, sharing a message that only they can understand. Is something coming for them? Or is the frequency warning them about something that's already here? 

My opinion: Miranda jumps right in with both feet: sensational murder, a missing teen, and the suggestion of ghosts and/or aliens. She takes us on a long, meandering journey of discovery with very few conclusions. Just a few facts, really. And that's not a censure. For another author this would be, at most, a short story. In Miranda's masterful hands we get a compelling journey of self discovery. The self destruction and invisibility that come along with being the sibling of a missing person or a murder suspect. These are teens looking to fill holes in their personal lives and get answers for their families. One searches in science, the other in the supernatural. And these explorations are not surface. They throw themselves in whole-heartedly and their explorations are given complex explanation. The resolution of the two mysteries is a little thin, more explanation given to the science of the signal than the mysteries, but that results in a denouement that feels real to life.
More information: Come Find Me releases January 29.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.

The best kind of upcycling

I spotted this little project on Pinterest a while back and have been looking for a chance to make one. I finally emptied out a bottle that was not only the right size but has a great image on it.

I can't wait to carry things in my Spider-Man pouch. 

Book review - Freya and Zoose

Title: Freya & Zoose
Author: Emily Butler
Genre: adventure
Similar books: Edison: The Mystery of the Missing Mouse Treasure by Torben Kuhlmann
                      Chickenhare by Chris Grine
Rating:

not as light hearted and innocent as it appears

Summary (provided by publisher): Freya has always craved--and feared--adventure. Traipsing all over the world is simply not what dignified rockhopper penguins do. But when she hears about Captain Salomon August Andrée's hot-air balloon expedition to the North Pole, Freya packs her copy of Hints to Lady Travellers and hops on board.
Only moments after leaving land, Freya discovers a fellow stowaway! Meet Zoose, the scrappy, uncouth mouse whose endless wisecracks and despicable manners make him a less-than-ideal travel companion.
When the hot-air balloon is forced to land in the Arctic, these polar opposites must learn how to get along. Their very survival depends on it.

My opinion: At the start, this seems like a fairly standard, innocent adventure story. Freya and Zoose are complete opposites who, through random mischance, must find a way to get along. At first, it's just a matter of more pleasant travel. Then, through misadventure and near death experience, they learn to work together and even appreciate one another's company. This is all cute, a touch quirky, but entirely expected of a book for young readers. It takes increasingly dark turns as they travel deeper into the arctic and their human counterparts begin to fail. While the ending has a hopeful tone, it's not the tidy, positive conclusion you'd expect from a book for small children.

More information: Freya & Zoose releases January 29.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.

Pick 6: multiple perspectives

One of the best things about fiction is the way that it opens up your world to perspectives you wouldn't otherwise understand. It's even better when a single book gives you multiple perspectives at once. Here are six book published in the past six months that are presented from more than one perspective.

6 new multiple perspective narratives

1. Paper Girl by Cindy R. Wilson
2. Any Second by Kevin Emerson
3. The Color of Lies by C.J. Lyons
4. In Your Shoes by Donna Gephart
5. Phantom Wheel by Tracy Deebs
6. The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge by M.T. Anderson

Non-fiction book review - Draw Alphabeasts

Draw Alphabeasts by Steve Harpster

The central concept of this book is pretty simple: starting with a letter or number draw a monster, alien, or robot. Each drawing takes just a few steps with varying degrees of detail. For the most part, this means that once you have the basic designs down it wouldn't be difficult to alter the drawing to truly make it your own. Even more importantly, this book can train a young artist to look for simple shapes in things that they want to draw, thew ways to use simple lines as a starting point for a more complex image.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.

Mostly, I couldn't think how to illustrate quarks

In the wake of putting away the Christmas decorations, the house can seem kind of empty and cold. The only solution, to my mind, is to make new decorations to brighten things up for the rest of the winter. To start that process, I made a little embroidered image for my bedroom door. I've been fascinated by science images lately, so decided to make an atom with a scrap of knit fabric and multi-colored thread.

Book review - Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful

Title: Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful
Author: Arwen Elys Dayton
Genre: Sci-fi
Similar books: The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgewick
                      Beta by Rachel Cohn
Rating:

the thinking person's sci-fi

Summary (provided by publisher): The future is curious.
STRONGER
Today our bodies define us. We color our hair; tattoo our skin; pierce our ears, brows, noses. We lift weights, run miles, break records. We are flesh and blood and bone.
FASTER
Tomorrow has different rules. The future is no longer about who we are--it's about who we want to be. If you can dream it, you can be it. Science will make us smarter, healthier, flawless in every way. Our future is boundless.
MORE BEAUTIFUL
This is a story that begins tomorrow. It's a story about us. It's a story about who comes after us. And it's a story about perfection. Because perfection has a way of getting ugly.

My opinion: This book is best described as thematically linked short stories. There are some ties in location and character. Personally, I wish the links had been stronger. For instance, a few of the stories directly referenced the character of Tad Tadd. I loved the idea of seeing his perspective and perception of him changing as time passed. We get a few snap shots but it might have been cool to see that constant change, paralleling the societal perception of genetic modification. 
The book takes the form of relatively short stories, all with open endings. We never hear how life turns out for individuals but are allowed to imagine their end for ourselves. The implication is that the individual actually doesn't matter but that their experiences are representative of the human species on the whole. The last few stories take us pretty far afield and thus begin to suffer some believability issues. But the writing is tight and clean. By starting in what is essentially our reality and extrapolating from there, Dylan has provided a collection that most every reader will appreciate at some stage.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.

Picture books for everyone

Chilly da Vinci by J. Rutland

At face value, readers will get exactly what you might expect from this book. A penguin inventor who is dismissed by his peers. Very young readers will join Chilly in his dismay at his failures and anticipate his success. But this is more to this story than the hunt for a successful invention. We see Chilly's supreme confidence in his ideas and the way he is plagued by doubts after failure. We follow his whole thought process, the scientific principles behind each invention. We see how, in time, he learns from his failures. In a broad way it can serve as a simple introduction to the scientific method. Older readers may enjoy brainstorming their own inventions or improvements on Chilly's failures.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.

Non fiction book review - Journey of York

The Journey of York by Hasan Davis

Every American school child learns about the Lewis and Clark expedition. By which I mean, we all learn that Lewis and Clark traveled to the west coast. That's it. Maybe we learn that they took "men" and Sacajawea. We certainly don't learn about York. Our history books hardly mention slaves except in context of the Civil War. So this book gives us essentially an outsider perspective. We see how York was used by Lewis and Clark in negotiations, how he was mistreated by other members of the expedition. It's a slightly darker, far more accurate, version of exploration than we are usually given. Definitely a good choice to supplement what kids are learning in school.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Happy New Year!

Here's to a new year of achievement, joy, and good books!