Book Reviews

If you want a good laugh, a chortle, a chuckle, read “Unseen Guest” by Maryrose Woods (Scholastic 2010), the third in the series of “The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place.” Really you should start with the first, “The Mysterious Howling” then “The Hidden Gallery.”

If you’ve already read them listen to the book on disc read by Katherine Kellgren (Listening Library). Kellgren’s regal over-the-top oh-so-dramatic reading is uproarious. What a terrific pairing—Wood’s writing and Kellgren’s reading. This would be a great book on a family trip where everyone could listen to the same thing. Together.

The overarching story is that of three children who were raised by wolves and are being educated to become more child-like, less doggy. The job falls to teenaged governess Miss Penelope Lumley who herself has been educated at the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females. But who are these children really?

In the “Unseen Guest,” plucky Penelope must divert a money-hungry admiral from making her wolfy students–Alexander, Beowulf, and Cassiopeia Incorrigible–into a circus sideshow. And if that weren’t enough, she does her work while they are all hunting down the admiral’s runaway ostrich through the English countryside.

The children, having been raised by wolves, are remarkably fine trackers. And we learn a little about their former lives as wolves, but the mystery is still…well, mysterious.

The reader receives smashing good advice handed down from the Academy’s founder, Agatha Swanburne, such as: “Nest eggs do not hatch unless you sit on them for a good long time.”

And in the course of this Victorian melodrama, we are educated to Victorian ways. For instance, after dinner the gentlemen retire to the study for cigars and brandy. The children’s guardian, Lord Ashton says, “Let the ladies play whist, or stitch advice onto pillows, or whatever it is they do when we’re not around.”

I giggled throughout, but I let out a particularly rude guffaw when Lady Constance Ashton saw a mouse and “let out a squeak that only a bat could hear.”

I’ve reviewed the first and second of the series in April 2011. That’s how good it is. I’m steering it your way again, but this time you might want to listen to it.

 

Patricia Hruby Powell (www.talesforallages.com) is a nationally touring speaker, dancer, storyteller, librarian and children’s book author.

 

Franny, eleven, is enduring, not fire drills, but duck-and-cover drills at school, in the event of an atomic bomb attack. I remember no such drills from my childhood, but Franny lives outside Andrews Air Force Base, Washington DC, which would be a prime target and we’re in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962, when the U.S.S.R. is threatening to strike the U.S.A.

The novel “Countdown” by Deborah Wiles (Scholastic 2010) begins with “documentary footage” of 1962 America. Handsome charismatic John F. Kennedy is quoted as saying, “We have enough missiles to blow you up thirty times over.” Nikita Khrushchev, Head of the U.S.S.R., on the facing page says, “We have enough to blow you up only once, but that will be enough for us.” The world is in the midst of cold war. Who remembers Khrushchev with a witty comeback?

Franny’s big sister is attending college in DC and involved in mysterious endeavors to “change the world.” What she’s actually doing remains mysterious. Interspersed throughout the book are more “documentary” pages that give the reader the context of the times. And so much was happening. The Civil Rights Movement was in full swing, for instance.

Franny’s little brother Drew is a “saintly” child, but Franny manages to get him to tell a lie, to the extreme grief of her strict, cigarette-smoking, smart mother. I’m delighted to find a formidable mother in a middle grade novel. Franny’s father is a major in the Air Force with the task to “keep America safe.”

Crazy Uncle Otts tries to build a fallout shelter in the front yard. The nation is frozen in the grips of fear while Franny’s fears are those of a fifth grader—her best friend has chosen another, her adored sister is absent, an odd embarrassing uncle, plus the realization of her world in great change.

The documentary pages include advertisements for fallout shelters, lyrics to songs, young Bob Dylan, TV celebrities, the glorious first lady Jackie Kennedy, maps, political cartoons headlines, Havana. This is a very cool format that both kids and adults will appreciate. It gives the context of the times, deepening our understanding of the story. We’re getting the top internet hits delivered just as we need them.

This semi-autobiographical documentary novel is the first in Wiles’ trilogy of the 60’s.

 

 

Patricia Hruby Powell (www.talesforallages.com) is a nationally touring speaker, dancer, storyteller, librarian and children’s book author.

 

Summer is here. Yahoo. Time to play. Time to read. You don’t HAVE to read, you GET to read. These two 150 page novels, liberally sprinkled with black and white illustrations can keep younger middle grade readers reading this summer.

In “Letters to Leo” by Amy Hest (Candlewick 2012), 4^th grader, Annie Rossi writes a diary to her dog, Leo. Annie is an opinionated, loveable 4^th grader. She feels the injustice of the world in a high-spirited and entertaining manner. All those rules—no eating in the library, no drinking, no loud talking, no dancing, no dogs in the library. (She should come to my library (the Urbana Free Library) where we eat (in some areas) and on occasion entertain dogs by reading to them). On top of that Annie’s best friend is moving away.

At times, Annie is angry and no wonder. Her mom died in a prequel, “Remembering Mrs. Rossi” (Candlewick 2007), but it’s not necessary to read the earlier book to appreciate this light lovely romp. Usually, Annie’s exuberance trumps her low spirits and even her old professor dad (he’s 40) is cheered.

Julia Denos’ zippy child-like illustrations add to the fun of this book.

“Bless This Mouse” by (Newbery winner) Lois Lowry (Houghton 2011) and illustrated by (Caldecott winner) Eric Rohmann is written in a slightly old-fashioned style and could be a classic-in-the making.

Hildegarde, Mouse Mistress of St. Bartholomew church, must keep the church mice safe. They know the Great X is coming. The adept reader will discover on his own that the X is the Exterminator—Pest Control—No-More-Rodents. Not only is the Great X on the way, so is the Blessing of Animals and that will surely mean cats right inside the church. Alas, dangers abound.

Clever Hildegarde has a master plan. She also has a nemesis, Lucretia, who wants Hildegarde’s job and high status. In the end Lucretia gets her come-uppance, but Hildegarde will be more-than fair. Ignatius, an erudite and worldly mouse, advises Hildegarde, as does Roderick, who has a crush on Hildegarde. The plot includes brave rescues from a mouse’s point of view, keeping it fun and light hearted and gently Christian.

An audio version is melodramatically but nicely read by Bernadette Dunne.

Read read read. And parents, read to your children even if they can already read themselves. They’ll remember it forever.

AND FURTHERMORE: (This is the part that’s not in the Champaign Urbana News Gazette) My mom used to read to my sister and me after dinner, when we were in elementary school–books like Charlotte’s Web and  Hitty, Her First Hundred Years, (Monica, what else?) and my brother, a good deal older and in high school would come out of his lair (his bedroom where he studied physics and did chemistry experiments), come downstairs and stand in the doorway and listen to my mom read. She was a great reader. Reading great books.

Patricia Hruby Powell (www.talesforallages.com) is a nationally touring speaker, dancer, storyteller, librarian and children’s book author. Check out her website at: http://www.talesforallages.com/

And if you really want to humor her, you can follow her tweets @hrubypowell

Have you ever wondered about the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings? Kimberly Brubaker Bradley’s book of historic fiction, “Jefferson’s Sons: A Founding Father’s Secret Children” (Dial 2011) is the most insightful account of slavery and life at “Master” Jefferson’s estate, Monticello, that I’ve yet to encounter.

The story is told in the voice of the first son, Beverly, changes to the second son Madison and then moves to another slave, Peter. It tells the story of Master Jefferson living in the big house and Mama (Sally Hemings) and their children who live in the choice slave quarter, Mulberry Row.

Sally Hemings gets the best for her children and she assures them (and us, the reader) that this is not altogether slavery. Slavery is a runaway slave being whipped once he’s caught. Mama makes her young children watch such a whipping so they understand the privilege under which they live.

Are the children recognized as the Master’s children? In ways. Jefferson gives the oldest son, Beverly, a violin to play and each of the boys learns to play it. Two of them are good players, and in time there will be another violin. But for the most part, the children are an embarrassing secret—a secret that everyone on the plantation knows, yet it is unspoken. These are Jefferson’s invisible children.

Mama is promised freedom for her children when they each turn 21. Three are so fair-skinned, they plan to “pass” or enter into white society. What does one have to do in order to pass? Give up one’s past entirely. Keep the secret of who they are and absolutely never tell a soul, never look back, and never visit their people who are black slaves.

Mama pushes her children who can “pass” to observe, learn, and enact the manners of white society. It’s essential for their future lives and for keeping their secret.

What does it mean that Thomas Jefferson famously wrote, in the Declaration of Independence, “all men are created equal.” Yet he keeps slaves. Every night Mama beds with the master, yet she is his slave.

If the 360-page book is daunting, listen to Adenrele Ojo’s exquisite reading [Listening Library]. http://www.randomhouse.com/book/213798/jeffersons-sons-by-kimberly-brubaker-bradley

Find out more at http://www.monticello.org/ where the author did a good deal of her research. At the end she describes how she used this resource, what is fact, what is her speculation.

 

Patricia Hruby Powell (www.talesforallages.com) is a nationally touring speaker, dancer, storyteller, librarian and children’s book author.

 

Do you have warts? Moles? Hot flashes? Cold sweats? Do you twitch? If so, you’re rather lucky not to be living in colonial America—specifically, Salem, Massachusetts, 1692—because those maladies could have marked you as a witch. Or have been perpetrated by demons.

“Witches: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem” by Rosalyn Schanzer (National Geographic 2011) is the non-fiction story of the witch-hunt that began with the mysterious illness of two cousins, Betty Parris, eight, and Abigail Williams, twelve.

American Puritans of the 17^th century believed the natural world was subject to forces from the “Invisible” world. Books had been written by “respectable men” about the terrifying effects of witchcraft. The fears generated by this belief moved the colonial government to create laws that made practicing witchcraft punishable by death.

So when two girls began having twitching “fits” that became so violent their bodies contorted into grotesque postures, the doctors diagnosed them as being bewitched. So, the girls began accusing neighbors of being the witches who tormented them.

Midwives and the homeless—the vulnerable of the community because they were without family—were first to be accused of casting spells. Officials of the church and community tried, accused, and hung a few “witches”. Crowds gathered to witness these grisly town-center affairs.

More become afflicted with the twitching fits, which meant more accusations of witchcraft were made. People pointed their fingers at others to save themselves from accusation, until twenty “witches” were executed and in their wake hundreds of lives were ruined.

If you were accused as a witch, you were required to pay your prison fees. If you were found guilty, your family was shunned and their property confiscated. So even years after the hysteria had died down, the families of the accused were without homes and livelihoods.

The compact volume with its black and white scratch-board illustrations accented in red, rendered by the author is attractive. We’ll be seeing more books in this trim size.

Whereas “Witches” is an older middle grade book, “Wicked Girls: a Novel of the Salem Witch Trials” by Stephanie Hemphill (Balzer & Bray 2010) is teen fiction written in free verse. Hemphill’s characters are the actual historic people. She is able to speculate as to why the girls sought attention, bringing another fascinating element to this seductive, dark, topic.

 

 

 

Patricia Hruby Powell (www.talesforallages.com) is a nationally touring speaker, dancer, storyteller, librarian and children’s book author.

 

“Wonderstruck” (Scholastic 2011) is a novel by Brian Selznick, told half in writing, half in drawings. It opens with wolves running at the reader. They’re so close you see only their eyes, then so close, one eye and then closer yet. Are the wolves a dream?

Ben wakes up. So it was a dream? The written story begins in Gunflint Lake, Minnesota in 1977. Through the wall, Ben, who is deaf in one ear, hears his aunt and uncle talk about selling his Mom’s house at the other end of the property. After all, his mom had died. But sell his house? What about his stuff? All he has with him is a box of bird skeletons and found odds and ends.

Even though a storm is brewing Ben runs to the house where he lived with his mom.

Turn the page and we’re back to exquisitely rendered drawings of a young girl in New Jersey, 1927. She’s making a scrapbook of the actress Lillian Mayhew. The girl runs outside into an urban setting.

Turn another page and we return to the written story—Ben’s story, which parallels the story of the girl—Rose, who we realize is deaf. It’s storming in both stories, which heightens the mystery. Where are Rose’s parents? Who is Ben’s father? At the moment that Ben finds a clue in his mother’s closet, he blacks out.

Ben wakes up in a hospital bed, now completely deaf. Was the house struck by lightning? He dreams of wolves again. This time they’re running down the streets of New York City.

In both stories—the pictorial and the written—each child, separated by fifty years, is running away to New York. Ben enters the American Museum of Natural History. Is it the same place that’s depicted on Rose’s post card? Is Rose seeing the same dinosaur skeleton that Ben just passed?

The two stories converge in a surprising manner, leaving the reader feeling rather ebullient. Rose and Ben’s realistic connection is more than satisfying. This is no fantasy. And the wolves were more than a dream.

“Wonderstruck” is not a graphic novel with multiple frames per page, but it is sequential art. And wow—what art. The excellent movie, “Hugo,” is taken from Selznick’s first such book, “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” (Scholastic 2007), a Caldecott Medal winner. Both books and movie are “must-sees.”

See the trailer and listen to the author speak of the creating process. http://www.amazon.com/Wonderstruck-Brian-Selznick/dp/0545027896