Book review - The Last Tree Town

Title: The Last Tree Town

Author: Beth Turley

Genre: realistic fiction

Similar books: The Water Bears by Kim Baker

                      Where You'll Find Me by Natasha friend

Rating:

well developed

Summary (provided by publisher): Cassi has always been proud to be Puerto Rican, but when others comment on her appearance, telling her she doesn’t look like the rest of her family, Cassi begins to question everything.
At school, Cassi finds a distraction in the Math Olympics, where she is able to do what she loves and soon befriends Aaron, the new boy who tells her stories about all the tree towns he’s lived in. Just when everything seems to be getting better, a painful video goes viral and Cassi wonders if Mapleton is just another stop on Aaron’s list.
As the seasons change, Cassi must learn to solve the pieces of her life that are varied and emotional and at times, beautiful. And even when they don’t equate, reveal a rewarding answer. 

My opinion: There's a lot of complexity at play in this novel. The plot combines issues of race, mental illness (especially as it affects the entire family and how race affects our reaction to it), and grief for things we've lost. Grief for significant life changes rather than for death. Add in the base struggles that are a part of life in the preteen years, puberty and the changes in friendships and the beginning of romantic interests, and we have a very complex plot. It could easily be too much for this age group if not carefully handled. It really speaks to Turley's skill as an author that she is able to create a cohesive narrative out of all of those elements. The key is that this remains Cassi's story. The other elements are important only in that they inform Cassi's decision making. They lead her through increasingly poor decision making before she seeks outside help. It's a painfully nice book for kids coping with big changes in their lives.

 

More information: The Last Tree Town releases June 1.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Pick 6: Sports

While I’m not a fan of most things athletic myself, I must admit sports and the personalities that come along with athletics have great natural drama for stories. Competition reads well on the page and can provide other natural lessons on teamwork and fair play. Here are six books with strong athletic elements published in the last six months.

6 New Sports Stories

1. Chirp by Kate Messner
2. This Train is Being Held by Ismee Williams
3. Pop Flies, Robo Pets, and Other Disasters by Suzanne Kamala
4. Micah McKinney and the Boys ofSummer by Nina Chapman
5. We are the Wildcats by Siobhan Vivian
6. The Summer of Impossibilities by Rachael Allen
   

Book review - Once Upon a Space-Time!

Title: Once Upon a Space-Time!
Author: Jeffrey Brown
Genre: sci-fi/graphic novel
Similar books: Star Scouts by Mike Lawrence
                      Earthling by Mike Fearing
Rating:

cute and informative

Summary (provided by publisher): Jide and Petra are just two normal kids until they are selected to leave Earth and join their new alien classmates on an intergalactic research mission to Mars. Too bad Petra has no idea how she ended up in the program, seeing as the closest she wants to get to space is being a sci-fi writer. Jide, on the other hand, is the brains of the mission, but his helicopter parents make it clear he hasn't left their gravitational pull behind quite yet.
What is meant to be an intra-species bonding experience soon turns to hijinx as the kids discover The Potato orbiting around their new space classroom and accidentally launch a mission of their own without any adult commanders around to supervise--or help!

My opinion: This is Brown's second journey into using a narrative to educate in the graphic novel format. Previously, in the Lucy and Andy Neanderthal series he taught us about prehistoric life. This book takes on the science of space travel. As in that previous series, this book uses the story as a loose framework for teaching us about space. There is no strong conflict, more a series of quirky circumstances. Some of the complications work a bit too hard to integrate the facts into the text. Additionally the humor is pretty random, sometimes drawing focus away from the plot. The art is charming enough to support this through a single read though I don't know that it will hold up to a repeat.
More information: Once Upon a Space-Time! releases June 2
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.

Book review - Nowhere on Earth

Title: Nowhere on Earth
Author: Nick Lake
Genre: sci-fi
Similar books: When Light Left Us by Leah Thomas
                      From a Distant Star by Karen McQuestion
Rating:

I had some issues with it

Summary (provided by publisher):Sixteen-year-old Emily is on the run. Between her parents and the trouble she's recently gotten into at school, she has more than enough reason to get away. But when she finds a little boy named Aidan wandering in the woods, she knows she needs to help him find his way home. But getting home is no easy matter, especially when Emily finds out that Aidan isn't even from Earth. When their plane crashes into the side of a snowy mountain, it's up to Emily to ensure Aidan and their pilot, Bob, make it off the mountain alive. Pursued by government forces who want to capture Aidan, the unlikely team of three trek across the freezing landscape, learning more about each other, and about life, than they ever thought possible.

My opinion: I think I wanted to like this book better than I did. There was a strong sense of unreality to the plot and I don't think that the presence of aliens is to blame. The alien worked best for me, actually. The idea that aliens aren't going to look even vaguely human, that they might occupy more dimensions, be formed of different elemental combinations, defy our ability to fully perceive them, and utilize perceptual camouflage, all seemed quite reasonable to me. It was Emily that I struggled with. Her extraordinary survival skills, her flight from shadow agents, this was my struggle. Her backstory of struggles at school and her desire to dance were only tenuously tied to the main plot. The final chapters relied a bit more on happenstance than I generally prefer. While the ideas are interesting, it's just a bit too scattered.
More information: Nowhere on Earth releases May 26.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Picture books for everyone

A is for Another Rabbit by Hannah Batsel

We've seen a trend recent years of alphabet books that do their best to be more. Some are informative. Others, like this one, use humor. This one uses a single object, rabbits, to illustrate every letter. Sometimes this is in the form of a sentence like "Can you believe how many rabbits are on this page". Other times it's through trickery, like disguising the rabbits as something else. It's not a story exactly but there's a lot of humor in the creative uses of rabbits and the increasingly exasperated owl. It's humor that will reach early elementary kids and the adults reading to them alike. And the illustrations are charming so it's also fun just to leaf through.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.

Non-fiction book review - The Mermaid Atlas

The Mermaid Atlas by Anna Claybourne

Personally, I've never really been into mermaids. Especially the typical portrayal we get in cartoons of pretty, empty-headed things that just giggle and flirt with men. What does interest me is the various portrayals of merfolk in folktales. And that's what Claybourne is looking at here. We have friendly, aggressive, and indifferent creatures. Single gender or fully cultured. Even some proto-merfolk like selkies. Each legend gets just a couple of paragraphs but that's enough to see both how the idea of mermaids is cross-cultural and how other cultural elements influence the nature of the legend. This is a great book for any kid with an interest in folk creatures.

More information:  The Mermaid Atlas releases June 1.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Book review - Orphan Eleven

Title: Orphan Eleven
Author: Gennifer Choldenko
Genre: historical fiction
Similar books: Dave at Night by Gail Carson Levine
                      Listening for Lions by Gloria Whelan
Rating:

a bit fanciful

Summary (provided by publisher): An engaging adventure from a Newbery Honor-winning storyteller for readers who love the circus, and anyone who has dreamed of finding the perfect home.
Four orphans have escaped from the Home for Friendless Children. One is Lucy, who used to talk and sing. No one knows why she doesn't speak anymore; silence is her protection.
The orphans find work and new friends at a traveling circus. Lucy loves caring for the elephants, but she must be able to speak to them, and to warn others of danger. If Lucy doesn't find her voice, she'll be left behind when the circus goes on the rails. Meanwhile, people are searching for Lucy, and her puzzling past is about to catch up with her. 

My opinion: Choldenko certainly isn't afraid to show us marginalized populations in historical contexts and the harshness of everyday lives. Here we have orphaned/abandoned children coming into contact with circus folk, a group bound to be populated by outsiders. We see these people trying to find a place in life, a place they can belong and feel safe. This is paralleled in the elephants. The young elephant's loving acceptance and general skittishness are a direct reflection of various characters. The plot never digs too deep into any topic, somewhat to a disappointing degree. I might have liked more reflection on the reality of the life Lucy has left behind ,the future that awaited her. Or even more reflection on the things that influence the four orphans, the hurts that have caused the to act out, to act not in their own self interest.  Add in the circus which had an almost magical air, a sense of unreality, and I found I wasn't as satisfied with the book on the whole as I'd have liked.

More information: Orphan Eleven releases May 26.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Cardboard Corny Crab

I'm still participating in the Cardboard Creature Club on Instagram. This week's prompt was corny crab creature. I made my entry with a box, a little extra cardboard, some paint, and a pair of wiggle eyes.

 

Book review - The Elephant's Girl

Title: The Elephant's Girl
Author: Celesta Rimington
Genre: magical realism
Similar books: Forever Glimmer Creek by Stacy Hackney
                      Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu
Rating:

a solid read that gives us something to consider

Summary (provided by publisher): An elephant never forgets, but Lexington Willow can't remember what happened before a tornado swept her away when she was a toddler. All she knows is that it landed her near an enclosure in a Nebraska zoo; and there an elephant named Nyah protected her from the storm. With no trace of her birth family, Lex grew up at the zoo with Nyah and her elephant family; her foster father, Roger; her best friend, Fisher; and the wind whispering in her ear.
Now that she's twelve, Lex is finally old enough to help with the elephants. But during their first training session, Nyah sends her a telepathic image of the woods outside the zoo. Despite the wind's protests, Lex decides to investigate Nyah's message and gets wrapped up in an adventure involving ghosts, lost treasure, and a puzzle that might be the key to finding her family. As she hunts for answers, Lex must summon the courage to leave the secure borders of her zoo to discover who she really is--and why the tornado brought her here all those years ago. 

My opinion: Rimington leans hard into the magical realism, giving us a protagonist who can communicate with the wind and elephants as well as a ghost. The presentation of ghosts in this particular novel is fairly unique and creates a metaphor for exploring the changes to a friendship in adolescence. Lex's devotion to the ghost parallels her changing relationship with Fisher and reinforces the message that one person shouldn't be somebody else's everything. Add in our ties to the past, the ways that the people who came before us influence our present, and we have a solidly interesting read. The metaphors are a bit blunt but this is not uncommon in books for this age group.
More information: The Elephant's Girl releases May 19.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Graphic novel spotlight - Saturday and Sunday: Rock Heaven

Saturday and Sunday Rock Heaven by Fabien Vehlmann

If you read many European comic you begin to recognize a sort of random quality to the narrative absent from their American counterparts. Fans of Asterix and Tintin will find similarities in Saturday and Sunday. At face value, this is a story about a pair of friends having a low level adventure around their home, talking to other residents and exploring their island. At heart, it's an exploration of existential questions. These characters are asking about the nature of life and our purpose on this planet, seeking wise figures and sources of knowledge. Most of their attempts at an answer are met with silliness, but for the most part that humor adds to the meaning. The cartoony style, reminiscent of the Smurfs, belie  the complexity of the topic. While it doesn't find any real answers it does reassure the reader that these questions are a normal part of life and that none of us are alone.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Non-fiction book review - Won't Get Fooled Again

Won't Get Fooled Again by Erin Steuter

There are, of course, other books out there that explore the "fake news" phenomenon and explain how to check a story's viability. Steuter takes this idea a step further. In a series of scenarios we see how "fake news" gets perpetuated, how to check for truth, and verifying our own sources of research, being certain to warn about spoofed websites. She warns us against marking every "weird" story as false and preventing our own biases from coloring our research. Even more than that, she shows us how fake news harms the general perception of truth in news and even of truth in general. While the artwork is a bit rough and noisy, the information is invaluable making this well worth the read.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.

Book review - Last Girls

Title: Last GIrls
Author: Demetra Brodsky
Genre: realistic fiction
Similar books: Klickitat by Peter Rock
                      Watch the Sky by Kirsten Hubbard
Rating:

ultimately disappointing

Summary (provided by publisher): Demetra Brodsky's Last Girls is a twisting, suspenseful YA thriller about sisterhood, survival, and family secrets set in the world of doomsday prepping.
No one knows how the world will end.
On a secret compound in the Washington wilderness, Honey Juniper and her sisters are training to hunt, homestead, and protect their own.
Prepare for every situation.
But when danger strikes from within, putting her sisters at risk, training becomes real life, and only one thing is certain:
Nowhere is safe.


My opinion: At first, I was really into this book. I liked the comparison between the Juniper girls and this mysterious boy with missing sisters. I liked the parallels between their plots, the ways they were trapped by circumstances and how both of their worlds threatened to end. I was less happy when it became clear earlier than I'd have liked that it was not parallel plots but just one plot from two perspectives, that the missing sisters were the Junipers. Because then, instead of becoming an exploration of what leads a person to these extreme view it becomes a simple oppressive cult,. It's threats to their lives and a race for survival. The first chapters were an exploration of who we are, the things that influence, and what we give up for the good of others. The end was just the resolution of simple, physical plots. These emotional issues don't get resolutions or further exploration. All of the complexity is loaded into the early chapters. The end is just quick physical wrap up. That devolution from inventive and contemplative to commonplace was a serious let down.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

A rather dragony crocodile-cat

I happened upon @rhodemontijo's #cardboardcreatureclub on Instagram this week. The idea is to create a creature using primarily cardboard. Each week has a different prompt. And I was inspired. This week's prompt was crocodile-cat. My creature has definite dragon vibes.

Book review - What We Found in the Corn Maze and How it Saved a Dragon

Title: What We Found in the Corn Maze and How it Saved a Dragon
Author: Henry Clark
Genre: fantasy
Similar books: The Wonder of Wildflowers by Anna Staniszewski
                      The Magic of Melwick Orchard by Rebecca Caprara
Rating:

not sure it's the good kind of weird

Summary (provided by publisher): When three kids discover a book of magic spells that can only be cast during a few short minutes a day, they'll need all the time they can get to save a dying magical world, its last dragon, and themselves.
An ordinary day turns extraordinary when twelve-year-old Cal witnesses his neighbor Modesty summon a slew of lost coins without lifting a finger. Turns out she has a secret manual of magic spells . . . but they only work sometimes. And they're the most boring spells ever: To Change the Color of a Room, To Repair a Chimney, To Walk With Stilts, To Untangle Yarn. Useless!
But when Cal, his friend Drew, and Modesty are suddenly transported to the world the spells come from -- a world that's about to lose its last dragon -- they'll have to find a way to use the oddly specific incantations to save the day, if only they can figure out when magic works.
From the inventive mind of Henry Clark comes a hilariously wacky adventure about magic, friendship, a lookout tower come to life, a maze in the shape of a dragon, an actual dragon named Phlogiston, and lots and lots of popcorn.

My opinion: My rather fraught relationship with this book begins with the introduction of the technology called the Davytron. This struck me as an absolutely ridiculous name, and not in a good way. Every time it was mentioned, it pushed me out of the world of the story. And it strikes me as a symptom of a larger issue. It doesn't take itself seriously enough. The plot makes jokes at it's own expense. Most of the humor comes from absurd turns and pun names. The pun names are fine, though I'm not sure they'll all land with young readers, based as they are in library terminology. And the absurd turns aren't so much funny as just odd or happenstance. Only a narrow group of kids is going to truly enjoy this book.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Listen with me

Jackaby by William Ritter

When I initially read this book a couple of years ago I was utterly charmed. Charmed enough, in fact, that I was a little hesitant to listen to this audio. There's that fear that it won't live up to memory. I needn't have worried about this one. It holds up well. Ritter has taken a standard historical mystery and threaded it through with elements of magic and folk tales. Jackaby is a combination of Sherlock Holmes and the Doctor, a quirky and mysterious figure who sees what others cannot and often acts in ways people don't understand. He is paired with Abigail Rook, a regular young woman chaffing agains the standards of society, sick of being seen as less because of her gender and looking for adventure. There's also a ghost. And a duck who used to be human. As you might guess, there's a touch of humor in what might otherwise be a dark murder mystery.

Nicola Barber gives life to the character of Abigail Rook, who serves as our narrator. Her British accent is soothing but she lends an air of urgency and excitement. She reads in a dynamic way that keeps us engaged with the text.

Book review - Fox and Rabbit

Title: Fox & Rabbit
Author: Beth Ferry
Genre: early chapter book/graphic novel
Similar books: Narwhal and Jelly series by Ben Clanton
                      Peter and Ernesto by Graham Annable
Rating:

cute

Summary (provided by publisher): Easygoing Fox and anxious Rabbit seem like total opposites. But, somehow, they make the perfect pair! Whether searching for hidden treasure or planting a garden in their own backyard, Fox and Rabbit find everyday magic at every turn. On this first adventure, the pair will discover some new favorite things like sunsets, dandelions, and cotton candy. And they’ll face new fears like heights, swimming, and (poisonous!) frogs. Thankfully, there’s nothing Fox and Rabbit can’t do together!

My opinion: In my opinion, we don't have enough easy reader graphic novels. They're great for kids learning to read and reluctant readers alike. They use simple vocabulary and supplement the understanding of the text with dynamic illustrations. If Henry and Mudge or Frog and Toad had been comics it would probably look a lot like Fox and Rabbit as they share not only format but themes. This is a story of friends having simple adventures. Easy to understand and relatable.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Happy Star Wars Day

This Star Wars Day I decided to finally make a project I've been contemplating since I watched The Mandalorian - a plush Baby Yoda. I happen to have an old t-shirt that is the perfect Yoda color

 While I designed a rough pattern, for the most part I sort of just built this toy as a I went so the end result is a touch haphazard. I'm still pretty happy with the finished project.