Found

Found by Sarah Prineas

If this series is meant to be a trilogy, I am satisfied. If this series will continue, I am also satisfied. This is a terrific recommendation for children who love fantastical books about magic and wizards and dragons, and especially for those who want something new and unique. There are definitely new interpretations and insights here.

In the third installment of The Magic Thief, we find Conn in hiding in the Twilight. He has been exiled from his home city of Wellmet for his experiments in pyrotechnics. If he continues to ignore the recommendations of the Magistry, or wizard’s council, and the edicts of the Duchess, he will soon earn the right to a beheading.

Conn has few friends for multiple reasons. Conn began his life as a pickpocket, a guttersnipe, a thief. In fact, he would not currently be apprenticed to his Master, Neverly, had he not filtched the wizard’s locus magicalicus right out of the sorcerer’s pocket! When Conn finally found his own locus magicalicus, it turned out to be the primary stone within the Duchess’s royal jewels and, of course, Conn was inclined to steal it. Who would believe that it actually belonged to him?

Conn also has an unusual as well as hidden family tree. His uncle was the Underlord of the Twilight, Underlord Crowe. At one point in time, Crowe attempted to train Conn to be the next Underlord. It’s not exactly a glorious position, but it is necessary. Crowe just made it necessarily evil and earned no positive connections.

Conn believes some unusual claims and theories and well. He theorizes that magic is not just a tangible object to be used, but it is actually a being to work with through a special language. The language known to the wizards as spells. Conn feels that the magic of Wellmet, let’s call it Wellmet, has protected him all of his life and is now trying to speak to him. It is frightened.

In the last book, Lost, we meet Arionvhar, another magical being originally associated with the ancient city of Arionvhar that now lies in ruins. Conn believes Arionvhar to be a predator magic seeking to find a new city to control. And it has set its eyes on Wellmet. It is up to Conn to help and once again, he needs a locus magicalicus to aid him.

Without a locus stone, Conn has discovered that pyrotechnics aid him in speaking to Wellmet. This time, Nevery will help Conn in creating the largest and most technical pyrotechnic experiment yet. If they are discovered, it will surely mean a hanging. But Conn feels that Wellmet is worth any sacrifice. It sure would help if the other magisters would believe him!

A World Without Heroes

A World Without Heroes by Brandon Mull

No, this is not a song by KISS, but what an excellent title. Need a definition for “hero”? From the American Heritage Dictionary, High School Edition: 1. In mythology and legend, a man, often born of one mortal and one divine parent, who is endowed with great courage and strength, celebrated for his bold exploits, and favored by the gods. 2. Any man noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose; especially, one who has risked or sacrificed his life. It is the second one that we normally consider.

How about the following: “A hero sacrifices for the greater good. A hero is true to his or her conscience. In short, heroism means doing the right thing regardless of the consequences.” In Brandon Mull’s new series, Beyonders, we enter a world where such heroes are dead or in obscurity, waiting to pass their knowledge on to new heroes.

The world of Lyrian is dictated by the lone remaining wizard who has established himself as emperor by killing, conquering or coercing his fellow wizards and rulers. One is either for him or against him. He would rather one be for him and he will keep such a one in close quarters. He finds a person’s weaknesses and uses them to guarantee that person’s loyalty. He catalogs a person’s strengths and uses them to his own advantage.

There is only one way to defeat the Emperor Maldor and that is through a Word – a six-syllable word from the language of Creation, otherwise known as Edomic. When a master trains an apprentice, this word is devised to protect the master from an apprentice and create loyalty. The six syllables of the word that can “unmake” Maldor have been scattered across the land. To reach them, you must make the acquaintance of those who know where a single syllable might be found. The journey to them is treacherous. And then they are guarded by another individual who could either kill you or supply you with further information.

To make matters worse, the one who is chosen to pursue the word, gains the personal attention of Maldor himself. He will send spies, thieves, and killers to watch and prevent a person from finding the syllables. The closer an adventurer gets to acquiring all of the syllables, the more nervous Maldor gets as well as the more admiration and respect he will have for the hero. It becomes imperative for Maldor to keep the hero close to him. He might even issue an invitation to the Eternal Feast which grants the hero asylum – protection from Maldor. It will also put an end to the mission to destroy the emperor and protect Maldor until another hero comes forth.

Who is our hero? Young Jason. A junior high boy from our world. He gets swallowed by a hippopotamus and comes out a tree in Lyrian. Unfortunately, in his attempt to find a way back to Earth, he uncovers the first syllable of the forbidden word. His only choice seems to be to accept the call to defeat Maldor. Luckily, Rachel, another Beyonder, and a girl, will come to his aid.

Highly recommended high fantasy for sixth grade and up.

Squashed

Squashed by Joan Bauer

There is nothing like picking out a book to read sight unseen, jacket cover unread and reviews unsearched simply because it was a Caudill Nominee in 1996. I take my list into the stacks and search for the next novel. Now that I’m mainly searching books published in the early nineties, I can almost guarantee disappointment. You hear the title Squashed and certain pictures come into your mind. But then you hold the book in your hand and see an orange pumpkin on the cover. Oh. That kind of squash. How incredibly dull.

How is there nothing like that? Because the author took what could be a terrifically boring topic and made it exciting and suspenseful and touching and meaningful. That’s how.

Did I like it? Um, no, how about loved it.

I am recommending this book to girls and farmers from 5th through possibly even 10th grade (reluctant readers.) I was surprised to discover that it won the Ninth Annual Delacorte Press Prize for a First Young Adult Novel. It seems a better fit in juvenile, however…

Our main character is 16-year-old Ellie, a junior in high school. She is a grower at heart, but her passion is for growing gigantic pumpkins. That would be 15 named pumpkins in all. She started with 30 pounders which prepared her for the giant pumpkins that grew in excess of a hundred pounds. And those giants prepared her for the Big Max variety of squash, or Max as she calls him, the largest pumpkin in Iowa.

Ellie is a pro and has been competing in the Adult Growers level for the past two years – the first and only teenager to compete in that division ever. She should be proud that she has finished second only to Cyril Pool, but she is not. She wants to win. And if ever there was an antagonist, it’s Cyril Pool. He’s a “deeply despicable person” and “the air at Cyril’s place [is] polluted with deceit.”

If Ellie’s primary concern is a pumpkin putting the pounds on at an exponential rate, her secondary concern is taking the pounds off of herself at an equally exponential rate. She’d like to see Max put on ten pounds a day and she’d like herself to take off 20 pounds before the weigh-in. Ellie knows she’s not the perfect “girl”. She spends her time in the dirt and she cares little for how she looks, but she would like to be the kind of girl that everyone notices when she walks into a room - especially since the new boy arrived in town. Wes doesn’t just grow sweet corn; he is the president of the Agricultural Club at Gaithersville High. Here is a boy that can finally understand her grower’s heart and can appreciate her love for a vegetable.

Ellie could certainly use the support of a fellow grower like Wes. Her father, an Abe Lincoln look-alike AND a motivational speaker, hates the land and could care less if Max is protected from the elements and the squash thieves. He is more concerned with building up Ellie’s self-esteem. What he doesn’t understand is, growing an enormous squash takes guts and courage. “Only certain growers are cut out to handle this pressure – tough people of steel who can stand against the odds.” SOLD!

Bronx Masquerade

Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes

I have surprised a few and offended a few, perhaps even disappointed a few, when I came clean and admitted that I don’t like poetry. I don’t. I’m sorry. Set it to music that I can sing and you’ll get my attention. I love prose. Simple, transparent, blunt. More words. More story. More grammar.

Today, I present the 2003 Coretta Scott King Author Award winner. Poetry written by 18 different (fictional) teenagers with a bit of journaling in between. And it works. If nothing else, it is a quick read. Poetry usually is if you’re not required to dissect it and figure it out and read into it. And this book is most impressive because one author has written for 18 voices in varying styles. Now that’s talent!

Mr. Ward is a high school English teacher. He tells his class to write an essay about the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance. One student, Wesley, doesn’t see the point in studying poetry and then writing an essay about it, so he writes a poem instead. Mr. Ward appreciates his effort and asks him to read his poem to the class. “Teach” still requires the essay, but when another student asks to read his poem as well, Open Mike Fridays is born.

Every Friday, Teach, gives the floor to the students who have brought poems to share. There are some students who come prepared every week and there are others who are shy and need the semester to work up the courage to stand before the class. It is fine to read the poem right off the paper, but some of the students have some fun and ask a fellow student to provide a beat or a melody to the background. I few even stage a “cipher” which is a free-style poem where one person starts the poem and passes it off to the next person who must maintain the rhythm from the original.

Now for the reason I actually enjoyed the book… Mr. Ward’s class is predominantly African American with a couple of Latinos, Puerto Ricans, Italians, Jews and just plain old whites sprinkled in. But it is more than their skin that sets each of them apart. There are a couple of artists – a serious one and a closet one. There is a girl with the height to be a basketball star, but no passion for the sport. There is a boy with dyslexia, but a talent for the sax. A girl who wants to be seen for more than just fat. A girl with a baby to take care of. A boy who sees no future in his current direction. And they all want to be accepted for who they are and not what they look like.

It is through their poetry that the class becomes a family of friends who accept each other despite their differences. At the end of the school year, the class presents their poetry to the school and Tyrone shares, “Okay. I just wanted to say I’m really glad I got to do this poetry thing because I feel like, even though the people in our class are all different colors and some of you speak a different language and everything, I feel like we connected. I feel like I know you now. You know what I’m saying? I feel like we’re not as different as I thought.”

You can imagine… Next year, Mr. Ward will have to turn students away. No. Next year he’ll have to offer two English classes with Open Mike Fridays!

Recommended for junior to senior high youth. Reluctant readers could get drawn in. Anyone with a thirst for stardom via music. And of course, those who enjoy writing poetry… Might be a great way to introduce a class to diversity… multiculturalism. Hmmmm. Might be a great suggestion for some poor Millikin student in need of a short book… 

Vespers Rising

Vespers Rising by Rick Riordan, Peter Lerangis, Gordon Korman and Jude Watson

I told myself I wasn’t going to read any more of these (The 39 Clues). What happened? Perhaps my Obsessive Compulsive self took over. Or my anal retentive self. Or perhaps I couldn’t bear to see a request list without my name on it and it was getting long at an exponential rate. Maybe I saw it on the processing shelf, all four copies, and a quick calculation proved that one could indeed be mine. Maybe Mr. John had already read it … I think it is my need to read everything first. I need to know the punch line first. I need a bit of control somewhere in my life. Something that is my choice. Nah, the books rule me.

This is a short novel, much like the previous portion of the series, but the book contains four parts, each written by a different author. It might be of interest that I didn’t notice that they each wrote a complete section until I was on the final section. I think the authors are either really good, are a great deal alike in their writing styles, OR the book isn’t much of a big deal. Easy Peasy. Simple. Forgettable. Depends upon your reader ... obviously!

Part One: We are officially introduced to the Cahill Patriarch, Gideon Cahill, circa 1507, along with his wife and four children. It is his last day on earth and he is scrambling to put his research, experiments and great mission in order. Most importantly, he is trying to give his children their portion of the serum and his wife future instructions without giving away the fact that he is dying.

Part Two: We meet a nineteen-year-old Madeleine Cahill, Gideon’s fifth child who was born after his death. “Maddy Babbitt, scared as a rabbit” has grown up knowing that she must keep herself and her mother a secret. They are in hiding from Lord Vesper, the man who killed her father. While in hiding, Maddy’s mother has been training her for a new great mission – purpose – reuniting the Cahill family.

Part Three: We meet a thirteen-year-old Grace Cahill as yet a virgin to the 39 clues. Her mother died in childbirth, her father left the family to deal with his grief and Grace, her older sister, Beatrice, and their baby brother Fiske are getting by on their own in Monaco. Grace is aware of a Cahill scheme, but her sister is the chosen successor to the game. Unfortunately, Beatrice wants nothing to do with the work and danger involved so when a boat sends a Morse-code message to Grace’s father at their home, it’s up to Grace to deliver the message to Casablanca on her own.

Part Four: Finally, we join Amy and Dan Cahill 6 months after they have returned home to their normal life. They are discovering that they are terribly bored. Bored to the rafters. Luckily Uncle Fiske and Nellie have a mission for them. Travel to Switzerland and obtain an important ring given by Gideon Cahill to his wife and passed on down through the centuries. It now belongs to Amy. She is its protector and keeper. But can they pass the test and come out alive on the other side? No time for boredom now.

Recommended for those who made it through the first 10 and want more! Excellent series for reluctant readers who enjoy action and adventure – both boys and girls!

My Sister's Keeper

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

I had never read a novel by Jodi Picoult before. I chose to read this one because it won the Abraham Lincoln Award. And now I have read all of the Lincoln Award Winners (fiction)! Yea! The things that bring relief if not happiness.

I hadn’t exactly gotten excited to read it. But it was a true page turner. I couldn’t put it down. I understand that there is a movie as well. It looks like Diaz and Breslin take the starring roles? Perhaps I’ll have to order it.

There are just those books that seem made for a TV movie or perhaps Hallmark is a better choice. And this book had the same feeling – guaranteed to push all of your emotional buttons. I should have known I was going to need tissues. I don’t know why I thought I would be immune.

The youngest character in the book and the protagonist, Anna Fitzgerald, is a mature thirteen-year-old girl and this is why I will recommend this book to girls from Junior High on. Children like to read about kids that are older than themselves. It gives them a glimpse into their future. And girls tend to be more mature.

But I will warn that there are also adult characters, young and old, and this novel was written with an adult audience in mind. Cursing is used, but not excessively, but rather appropriately if there is such a thing. I think there are still a few of us that need a Mt. Everest to collapse upon us to elicit a “darn”. The oldest, sibling, Jesse, has run amuck, he uses drugs, makes his own moonshine, steals motor vehicles, and is proudest of his arsonist tendencies. There is sex, but not descriptive and certainly not graphic, more implied. Finally, there is a lesbian character, but her seven-year relationship has just ended and she only makes a few angry appearances. These are the red flags of the Children’s Librarian. i.e. If you don’t point them out, a patron will.

Anna is the younger sister of Kate Fitzgerald who was diagnosed at two-years of age with a rare form of leukemia – acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL). “Only about twelve hundred people a year are diagnosed with it. The rate of survival for APL patients is twenty to thirty percent, if treatment starts immediately.” Kate’s best chance for survival is for a related, genetic match donor, but her brother is not a perfect match. A doctor suggests that Kate’s parents consider more siblings for Kate and that is the first inkling in their minds of an Anna.

Anna is a designer baby. She is not the first to be designed and certainly not created for something so shallow as to be tall or smart or pretty. No Anna is an embryo picked from among several because she had the six necessary proteins to be a match for Kate. She is a donor from the moment she is born. Kate receives her cord blood. Then she receives her lymphocytes, not once, but three times. Next she receives Anna’s bone marrow. What is at stake now, is Anna’s kidney for Kate’s life.

Anna hires a lawyer to help her become medically emancipated from her parents. She is tired of being invisible. She is tired of being important because she is Kate’s donor. She wants to be asked and treated as a human being. But of course there is more to the story. Anna doesn’t want to lose her sister any more than anyone else in the family. But she doesn’t want to lose herself in the process of saving her sister. No one seems to have the right answer, the moral answer, the ethical answer. The adults are as dumbfounded as the children. Anna doesn’t know if she wants to fight and if she chooses to fight, she isn’t sure she wants to win.

The book is told in multiple voices and they worked very well and convincingly. The children’s mother, Sarah, provides a unique voice as she speaks from the past. The day Kate was diagnosed. The days she almost died. The day Anna was born. The rest of the characters including all of the siblings, their father, the lawyer and the guardian ad litem assigned to Anna, speak from the present as they interact with each other and add their own insight to the case.

The book would be well worth a second read. There are so many ties and feelings and clichés that speak to the final decision. Sometimes we have our own opinions and ideas until they are applied to someone else and then we lose our convictions to the wind.

Lost

Lost by Sarah Prineas

This review is long overdue, but I was way behind in reading this sequel to The Magic Thief. I get caught between being anxious to read the next one and putting it off so that it won’t end so soon. I would probably enjoy a book that never ended. Or a series that continued indefinitely. Just, please, finish it before you expire, or at least leave behind your notes so someone else, a relative perhaps, can take over where you left off.

I reiterate, this series is a great place to visit if you’ve already tackled Harry Potter and all of its siblings. In the review of the original, I mentioned the similarity being that both Harry and Conn were unaware that they were wizards. Here is where the two diverge. Harry never quickly accepted and embraced who he was as a wizard. He was always so humble and loyal that he always deflected the limelight off of himself.

The author has never alluded to Conn being from wizarding stock or having been introduced to it in the past. One day Conn was living on the streets as a pickpocket and the next he is living with a powerful wizard as a servant. As soon as the wizard, Neverly, took Conn under his wing, Conn started entertaining delusions of grandeur. He certainly couldn’t be a servant and do work, BUT he would love to be a wizard’s apprentice.

What Conn needed more than anything was a locus magicalicus even before an education or a master. The wizard’s stone allows the wizard to speak to the magic. Without it, you cannot address the magic and so speaking the spells is useless. Conn did find his stone in the most unlikely of places. Being a pickpocket and a thieving locksmith has its benefits. But no sooner than he had acquired his locus, than he lost it. Rather, it was destroyed in the effort to save his home city of Wellmet.

Begin Book 2. We are right back to where we began. Conn needs a locus magicalicus in order to practice magic. Every wizard expects to have one and only one. When a locus stone is destroyed, the wizard is supposed to die with it. Problem 1. Conn is still alive and in need of education, but the magisters of the Academicos will no long accept him as a student because they believe he destroyed the Underlord’s home in the Twilight due to a pyrotechnic experiment gone awry. Problem 2.

Neverly warns Conn not to play with pyrotechnic experiments – that’s what got Neverly exiled from Wellmet for twenty years in the first place. But Conn has discovered that he can speak to the magic through mini pyrotechnics. Without his locus magicalicus, Conn cannot speak to the magic any other way. And Conn has a feeling that the magical being that protects Wellmet is still in trouble and is trying to warn him. Problem 3.

One experiment too many and Conn is banished from Wellmet. As much as Conn doesn’t want to leave the magical being who has protected him his entire life, it is necessary in order to save it. Conn joins the royal envoyage to the neighboring city of Desh. It is almost as if the magic is pushing him there. There is a slowsilver mine to explore AND a Sorcerer King to meet.

The answers to Wellmet’s problems might be found in Desh or more troubles might be stumbled upon. But what else is a guttersnipe supposed to do but sneak around in the shadows and gather as much information as possible. If only someone would listen to him! Time for Book 3!

Flygirl

Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith

This is it! The last 2012 Rebecca Caudill Nominee of the year. Happy Dance!

Boom, boom, ba-boom. Boom, boom ba-boom. Duhbaduh duhbaduh duhbaduh BOOM!

Sorry. A little excited. And I love to finish with a good one. Okay, they’re all good – mostly.

Flygirl is the story about a young colored girl named Ida Mae. Ida Mae has “good” hair meaning that it is smooth and doesn’t kink up. She has fair skin meaning she could pass for a white woman. And her daddy was a crop duster meaning he taught Ida Mae how to fly! But, World War II is in full swing and everything is being rationed from silk stockings and sugar, to bacon grease and fuel. Ida Mae’s daddy’s plane is in indefinite storage.

Ida Mae would like nothing more than to get her pilot’s license or attend a flight school. Instead, she is stuck at home working as a cleaning woman with her best friend who happens to be decidedly colored and perhaps a bit jealous. They have been saving their money for their dreams. Jolene likes stockings and boys and dancing. Ida Mae wants to fly. And the war makes it difficult for both.

Ida Mae’s younger brother brings home an article guaranteed to brighten her day. It says,

Free a Man to Fight

Mrs. Jackie Cochran, the cosmetics mogul and celebrated pilot, has joined forces with the United States Army to train women as ferrying pilots, freeing men to fight in the war effort overseas. The program will be called the Women Airforce Service Pilots, an offshoot of the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, begun by Nancy Love.

Ida Mae declares, “I’m gonna be a pilot in the U.S. Army.”

There is a catch. Most men and even women do NOT want to see women in the army. Men are privately intimidated by female pilots and vocally arrogant that women cannot perform their dangerous task. The women are concerned of the motives behind female pilots. Are they out to snag a husband? Are they loose with the abundance of enlisted men?

But if women are not wanted, colored women are taboo. Ida Mae must choose to pass as white in order to fly. So who is Ida Mae? A colored girl or a female pilot? And can she live with her choice. Should she live the lie along with the dream? When you pass for white, you cannot visit your colored relatives. Ida Mae should know. She has never met her daddy’s half of the family who choose to marry for opportunity and fair skin. Her daddy was the first to break with tradition.

Another book that had me hooked. I can identify with the mask many of us choose or are forced to wear in order to realize our dreams. We forget what is the truth and what is the lie. But we might discover ourselves in the process.

Excellent. Excellent! A recommended read for junior and senior high girls.

Peak

Peak by Roland Smith

I’ve been putting this off. My co-worker informed me that he had just blogged about this book the day I started it. And he’s pretty terrific. I considered just providing a link to his review and being done with it, but then I would be left incomplete. Besides, I might have an entirely different view of the book. And our missions are different. He talks about books for boys. I talk about the books I read. I will tell you, I haven’t even read his take on this book. I didn’t want to inform my own thoughts. Yet, here I am. Still procrastinating. Affected.

I met Roland Smith once and heard him talk about his book, Zach’s Lie, which I highly recommend along with it sequel Jack’s Run. He is a very nice man. I think I have a picture somewhere ... Perhaps at the library. I’ll look tonight. I pretty much recommend every book in the children’s department that he has written ... and the boys have usually beat me to it!

I would recommend this 2012 Caudill Nominee to boys ages 10 to 15. I would recommend it to any rock or wall climbers. I would also recommend it to boys dealing with the after effects of divorce and blended families.

Peak Marcello, our protagonist, has just landed himself in juvie for climbing a skyscraper – and getting caught. He left his “tag”, mark, stenciled blue mountain peak, on numerous other skyscrapers without getting caught, but now he can be traced to previous vandalism of the city’s towers. The prosecutors and judge intend to make an example of him to prevent other children from future attempts.

Peak’s wealthy, lawyer step-father has pulled every string and connection he has, but it is Peak’s biological father, whom he hasn’t seen in seven years, who saves the day. Peak’s father, called Josh, leaves his clients on Mt. Everest to come to the rescue of his son. Josh can guarantee that he can slip Peak out of the city and out of the spotlight at no cost to New York City. But is Josh really there to save Peak from three years in juvie OR is he there to save his own skin?

So here is what I really appreciate about this novel. It’s not a fairy tale. It is not all fun and games. Peak is smart and he sees right through the “rescue”. Josh looks wealthy on paper, but the truth is he is deep in debt. And Peak’s trouble provides an answer. Josh intends to recoup his money by putting the first 14-year-old on the summit of Mt. Everest. He will be able to retire off of the proceeds of the interviews and documentaries.

But they have very little time. A small window of opportunity before Peak’s 15th birthday and Everest is unforgiving. It is a life or death climb. It is a gamble with Peak’s life.

One more Caudill to go! Yippee!!