Those Cybils guys know what they're talking about...

I'm working this weekend, so today was my day off and I've spent it catching up on ER (Dr. Carter!!!) and reading The London Eye Mystery and Wake.

The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd was the 2008 Cybils winner for middle grade fiction. Ted's cousin Salim comes to visit in London and disappears after getting on the London Eye. He goes up... but he never comes back down. While the adults are frantically calling the police and freaking out, Ted and his older sister Kat set out to find Salim. I really liked Ted as a narrator. He's on the autism spectrum, which he relates to his brain running on a different operating system than most people's. It's this very difference that helps Ted figure out what's happened to Salim.

One thing that sometimes bugs me about mysteries for kids is that there's no reason why they can't just tell an adult and get things taken care of. Instead, the kids try to solve it on their own, making it needlessly complicated. I don't have the patience for that. So one of the things I loved about this book is that Ted and Kat really try to get the adults to listen to their theories. The adults are so freaked out, though, that they don't spare the time to listen to Ted's theories and questions. He's so frank about things that he's often shushed so as not to cause Aunt Gloria more grief. It was totally believable to me that Ted and Kat would and could set out on their own to solve things.

Also, there were tons of London-y details and English slang. I don't necessarily consider myself an Anglophile, but that was really neat.

So, I finished The London Eye Mystery this morning and this afternoon I picked up Wake by Lisa McMann. Honestly, I didn't think I was going to like it (I generally find dream sequences pretty annoying), but it's gotten so much buzz that I thought I should try it.

Oh my gosh, you guys. I could not put it down. I don't typically finish books in one sitting, but I honestly never wanted to put it down. I can totally see why it was on the Cybils shortlist in the Fantasy/Sci-Fi category.

Since she was eight years old, Janie's been pulled into other people's dreams. She learned pretty early on that sleepovers were not for her. She dreads having study hall right after lunch. Without warning, she might be plunged into someone's dream where she has to watch what unfolds. She's paralyzed until the dreamer wakes and the dream stops. Nightmares. Sex dreams. She thinks she's seen it all. But when she witnesses an extra-horrific nightmare, she decides she's had enough. Something has to change... but how?

I love, love, loved the romance in the book and it felt really realistic (well, except for the dream-catching thing, obvs). The story unfolds in fits and starts and the format felt very dreamlike (which I didn't think I would like, but it's actually really appropriate).

Y'all know how I feel about sequels and series (as a rule, I don't like them, although recent evidence [Envy, Starclimber] would suggest otherwise). So it says a lot that before Wake was even over, I was already looking forward to Fade.

So, that's how I've spent my day off. It's been quite pleasant. :)

I've got several posts planned for next week (if I can stop reading awesome Cybils finalists long enough to write them), including a Day in the Life and a post about an author visit I attended this week. So stay tuned. And enjoy your weekend. :)

Mini-Review: The Wednesday Wars

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt. (Grades 5-8.)

This is more of a plot summary than a review, but here's what I wrote after reading this in July '07:

"The year is 1967. Holling Hoodhood is stuck having Wednesday afternoons alone with a teacher who hates his guts. At first, she sticks to assigning him manual labor - he pounds erasers, cleans out the rat cage, cleans the classroom... But then she thinks of a more appropriate torture: Shakespeare.

Set with a background of the Vietnam War and the political climate of the late 60s, this story explores religion, politics, finding oneself, and coming of age. Holling's older sister has decided to be a flower child, much to the chagrin of their father. The girl that Holling has a crush on is the daughter of his father's fiercest business competitor. Holling's teacher, Mrs. Baker, has a husband fighting overseas in Vietnam. There is a lot of strife going on here. But through it all, Holling starts to figure out how to figure out exactly who he is, even if it's not who everyone else wants him to be. "

I remember that it took me a long time to figure out that this was historical fiction. And to be honest it wasn't one of my favorite reads (but it won a Newbery honor, so that shows how much I know...).

I think I may be alone in my "meh-ness", so be sure and check out many better-written reviews by people who loved the book like Sarah, Betsy, Becky, and Carlie.

Book Review: Flygirl

Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith. (Grades 7+)

Ida Mae Jones loves her family and she loves her friends, but above all else Ida Mae loves to fly. The problem? Because she's a woman and because she's black, she's not allowed to fly. When the US enters World War II and her brother goes off to serve in the military, Ida Mae is determined to join the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). So she fakes a pilot's license and "passes" for white. But the rigors of flight school are hard enough without the constant worry that someone will realize she's black. Ida Mae's risking everything to follow her passion and help her country.

I appreciate any historical novel that deals with an interesting period or aspect of history. I had never read anything about the WASP program before and that was interesting enough. Add to that Ida Mae's struggle with the Jim Crow laws and you get a richly layered historical novel that I just didn't want to put down.

Ida Mae's living in the south in the 1940s, a time when blacks have their place and there are disastrous consequences if they don't know it. Ida's father was really light-skinned due to conscious planning on the part of his ancestors and Ida Mae has inherited this light skin. She's light enough that she can pass for white, but if she's found out she'll almost certainly be lynched. The flight training is in Texas, a dangerous place to try to pass.

The premise was intriguing and the characters interesting. I'd highly recommed this one to fans of historical fiction.

Read interviews with Sherri L. Smith at Shelf Elf, The Five Randoms, and Bildungsroman. Also check out reviews at Finding Wonderland, Presenting Lenore, Reading Rants!, Reviewer X, and A Patchwork of Books. Check out Sherri L. Smith's website and Ida Mae's Myspace page (hehehe).

Book Review: This Full House

This Full House by Virginia Euwer Wolff. (Grades 9+)

LaVaughn dreams of escaping her poor, inner-city neighborhood and going to college to become a doctor. It's a dream she's been working towards since she was 14 and she answered an ad for a babysitter to save up money for college. When she answered that ad, she met teen mom Jolly and her two young kids and LaVaughn's life changed forever.

Now LaVaughn is a senior in high school and her goal is coming ever closer. She's been attending a Summer Science program and now she's accepted into a Women in the Medical Sciences group. LaVaughn knows that it's her ticket to good recommendations, to knowledge, to college. But when her LaVaughn discovers something about her teacher, she has to make a decision. Is she doing the right thing? Could this jeopardize her entire future?

Let me paint you a picture:

I'm 11 or 12 years old and we go to the Middletown branch of the Louisville Free Public Library. I browse the tiny YA section (I think it was only one bookcase and I'm certain it wasn't called Young Adult at the time). And I pick out the book Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff.

Later, I bring the book along when we go to my grandparents' house to have dinner. I am rarely without a book because I generally prefer to sit and read whenever I have a choice. There, sitting on my grandparents' couch, I devour much (if not all) of the book. Its verse format is unlike anything I've read before. And the story of LaVaughn and Jolly and Jeremy and Jilly sticks with me.

Years later, I take a YA Lit course in college where we read Make Lemonade and the National Book Award-winning sequel True Believer. It's then that I learn that this book is the second in a trilogy... only the third book has never come out.

Until now.

So, when I tell you that I have been waiting years for this third book in the Make Lemonade trilogy to come out, you know exactly what I mean. I've loved LaVaughn and her story since I was a young adult myself and I was so excited to see that the third book was finally available.

I highly recommend that you read Make Lemonade and True Believer before you tackle this one.

This Full House is about LaVaughn taking the next step in her journey. I have to say that a major plot point in the book felt like a bit of a stretch, but I will also say that I love LaVaughn so much that I don't care. LaVaughn definitely qualifies as one of my best literary friends. I will suspend my disbelief to the max just to spend some more time with her. I found it to be a very satisfying conclusion to the trilogy, but I am kind of fangirly about these books so you might want to take this with a grain of salt.

And the writing! I kept flagging passages to share, but this review is already really long, so I'll just share one. Or two. Um.. or three.

LaVaughn's describing a statue she sees at the art museum:

Their naked bodies were sitting down
and they were the quietest pair of people in love
I ever saw.
You couldn't not stop and stare
at these huge connected bodies.
Bronze, made of tin and copper taken from the earth,
made into human curves and muscles and lips.
And I looked through her bent leg
almost but not quite touching his bent leg,
the pyramid shape of air under their knees,
and I was in love with them. (pp 73-74)

On wondering about love:

To have a boy find you like a treasure
he has been hunting for.
What would that feel like? (pg 104)

And her love of science:

Through a door I see the genetic analyzer
in its clean, isolated room,
a machine that would make Gregor Mendel's heart jounce.
I have read about this invention
and I recognize it 30 feet away,
a throne of smartness that looks like a refrigerator.
(Sometimes couldn't you just jump up and down
to celebrate electricity? I could.) (pg 236)

If you've got a teen who loves novels in verse, hand them this trilogy. NOW.

Book Review: The Trouble Begins at 8

The Trouble Begins at 8: A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West by Sid Fleischman. (Grades 4+)

Mark Twain was born fully grown, with a cheap cigar clamped between his teeth.

The event took place, as far as is known, in a San Francisco hotel room sometime in the fall of 1865. The only person attending was a young newspaperman and frontier jester named Samuel Langhorne Clemens.

So begins Sid Fleischman's superbly entertaining biography of Mark Twain. He follows the life of Samuel Clemens from boyhood to his time piloting riverboats on the Mississippi River to his adventures in the Wild West and everything in between. I honestly wasn't sure that I was all that interested in Mark Twain, but I found his life to be very interesting and the funny, Twain-ian tone of the book completely sold me.

I found myself laughing right along as Fleischman described Sam Clemens's escapades and reading this biography really made me want to pick up more of Twain's work.

Plenty of photos accompany the text, but I think my favorite part of the book was Fleischman's annotated bibliography. He introduces it thusly:

I have no grudge against the alphabet; I live by it. But in this listing of books about Mark Twain, I felt that it would be misleading to call in the ABC's to impose a marching order. Instead, I have chosen to arrange my sources according to the magnitude of their charm for me as a reader and their usefulness to me as a biographer.

He then lists his sources, each with a note describing how they were useful and/or appealing to him. I've never seen that before and I think it's totally awesome and seriously ups the chance that someone might actually seek out some of those books.

This is a great book to hand to kids who have to read a biography and aren't really that excited about it. I'd especially hand it to kids who have read something by the author before because that might make it a little more appealing.

Read more reviews from Sarah Miller and Becky. Check out Sid Fleischman's website.

And Happy Nonfiction Monday! The Miss Rumphius Effect has the roundup.

Winner of Something Maybe!

Congratulations to Natasha who is the winner of an ARC of Something Maybe!

Thanks so much for entering, everybody!!

Anderson's Children's Lit Breakfast

This morning, I had the good fortune of being able to attend the 7th Annual Anderson's Children's Literature Breakfast with a group of wonderful friends. The snow did not deter us! (As Sharon Draper said... we're in Chicago. We don't play with snow.)

Luckily some of my friends got there extraordinarily early, so we got a great table at the front of the room. The lovely, bloggity Andrea Beaty was seated at our table and I'm mad at myself because by the time we got there and I figured out that's who she was, they had pretty much started the announcements and talks and I never really got a chance to chat with her. I reviewed her book Cicada Summer on my blog last summer. So Andrea, if you're reading this, A BELATED HELLO! And I'm sorry that I didn't get to chat with you more!!

The authors seated at the tables rotated after each talk, so we got a chance to meet and chat with several Illinois authors, all of whom were lovely.

We also heard from the four headlining authors. First up was Meg Cabot, who was predictably hilarious and sweet and everything you would expect Meg Cabot to be. She showed us pictures from her childhood and talked about writing. She had signed lots of stock, but I was pretty disappointed to realize that she had a flight to catch and would not be sticking around after the talks to sign books. I'm sure that Anderson's had no control over it, but it would have been nice to have a head's up (especially since Ms. Cabot was at Anderson's on Thursday signing things).

After Meg Cabot came Steven Kellogg, who was delightful and a really sweet guy. He drew a Pinkerton, read letters from students and teachers, and read part of his book Best Friends. I will have to do some research to find out if he has recorded any of his titles on tape because he was a great reader. And hey, why hasn't he won a Caldecott??? Seriously, if you get a chance to have him visit your school or library, take it.

Next up was Sharon Draper who made us rap. She talked about her upcoming series for young readers, Sassy. It sounded funny and I will definitely be checking it out. She also talked about her Ziggy series, which I have to admit I had never heard of before, but which sounded interesting.

And last, but certainly not least, was Peter Yarrow. And okay, I am of a generation which did not grow up listening to folk protest songs, so I may have been a little skeptical. But he had some great things to say about peace and respect and by the time he was finished singing Puff the Magic Dragon with everyone on stage, there was not a dry eye in the room. He was really promoting materials and music for Operation Respect, which promotes respect for all people and an end to bullying.

All in all, it was a really fun morning. We got a bag of freebies (mostly posters and teacher's guides to books) and there were door prizes. OH. And everyone got a free copy of Three Cups of Tea, which is awesome because I've been wanting read it since I read Amanda's review.

I would have to say, though, that having gone to this event and having gone to last year's YA Lit Conference, the YA Conference would be my event of choice. It felt like there were more attendees at the breakfast, while the YA Conference felt like a more intimate event where you could actually meet the headlining authors, ask questions, and attend panel discussions. At the YA Conference I bought tons of books and got them all signed. I didn't buy anything or get anything signed at the Breakfast. They had lots of signed stock, but it seemed like they were discouraging personal signing and Meg Cabot had already left by the time anyone got a chance to have anything signed.

Also disappointing was the fact that on Feb. 1 Anderson's sent out an email saying that Richard Peck, Ann M. Martin, and Kevin Henkes would be at the breakfast. Which they were not. Maybe it was due to the weather? But that was a let-down.

That said, this was my first time attending both events and I'm sure that each year is different depending on which authors are attending and that sort of thing. I'm still glad I went because it was a fun, book-centric morning with my librarian pals, but I probably wouldn't attend the breakfast again unless it was authors that I really, truly could not live without seeing.

Overbooked

I am in the middle of several great novels and I honestly can't decide which one I want to finish first.

On the one hand, I started Envy this week and I'm loooving it. I kind of rushed through Rumors for the 48-Hour Book Challenge, so I wanted to make sure and take my time with this one. I'm completely caught up in the adventures of Penelope, Elizabeth, Henry, Diana, and Carolina.

Then, also this week I started Ways to Live Forever, which I am also really enjoying. It comes highly recommended from coworker J.

And then the lovely and talented Sarah of GreenBeanTeenQueen (best name for a blog ever) graciously sent me an ARC of Starclimber, which I really want to finish before the book comes out on Tuesday. It makes me feel special to read books before they are generally available. And I started it (because even though I was already in the middle of two books, how could I not?!?!) and it is awesome and I love it. (Thank you, thank you, Sarah!!)

And what I should be reading is Enemy Women for the first meeting of my book club on Tuesday. But I have to confess that I started it and even though it was one of the books I suggested we read, it's just not really doing anything for me. I really dislike the no-quotation-marks thing. But maybe I am just not literary enough. Or something.

And what am I doing to alleviate the situation? Am I curled up reading my little eyes out? No, I'm blogging.

Sigh.

(PS: Blog post about Anderson's Children's Literature Breakfast will be up tomorrow! Stay tuned!)

Book Review: The Mozart Question

The Mozart Question by Michael Morpurgo, illustrated by Michael Foreman. (Grades 5+)

A young journalist has an unexpected assignment: to interview Paolo Levi, a famous violinist. Her supervisor cautions her on one thing: Don't ask the Mozart question.

In the interview, Paolo opens up and tells the story of how he started playing the violin and how his playing unearthed family secrets. Both Paolo's parents were Holocaust survivors and the reason they survived was that they were musicians. Their playing saved them, but the fact that they were used to comfort new detainees as they got off the trains sickened them.

It was an interesting story, based on fact. There were Jews that played music for new detainees. They played to save their own lives even though they knew that the people they were "comforting" were destined for hard labor or the gas chambers.

I'm not a fan of this type of story, where the entire story is narrated by someone within the story. I think this smacks of a "children's book" that's really for adults and I wonder how kids will react to it. The art is certainly beautiful, but the book's not exactly a picture book or a graphic novel. I'd hesitate to call it a novel, though. Maybe an illustrated novella.

I do think the topic has potential kid appeal. World War II and the Holocaust are both popular topics with kids and this story approaches a unique aspect of the Holocaust. And other bloggers disagree with me: 100 Scope Notes calls this "a must-have middle grade selection".

This book just wasn't my thing. But I'm not the one voting in the Caudill awards!

Check out Michael Morpurgo's website.

Around the interwebs before the snow

It's supposed to snow 6-8 inches tonight and tomorrow morning. Um, yeah. That will be a fun time to drive to Glen Ellyn for Anderson's Children's Literature Breakfast. But I'm pretty sure nothing can stop my friends from meeting Meg Cabot, so... ;)

Have you been reading Douglas Florian's blog? If not, I encourage you to start because it is fantastic. For instance, check out his Poetry Friday post: Poemagram. By using an anagram finder, you can find all the anagrams of your name... and then make them into a poem! His is suitably creative and wonderful.

Oooh this is one that the kids at my library will salivate over: Jen Robinson's got a press release about the final Percy Jackson book. She reveals the cover (which I'm stealing) and a bunch of special stuff that is happening before the release of the book on May 5.

Sarah's got another Hot Books in My Classroom post, so head over there are see what books are popular in her class. I love seeing what books her 6th-graders are crazy about!

Mary Lee wrote about 5 things her students expect when picking up a fiction book. That's definitely something worth thinking about for all of us and I love getting insight into what kids think about reading and books.

If you haven't seen this yet, you should definitely check it out: the AL Focus video of many of the 2009 Youth Media Award winners getting The Call. It's fun and funny and feel-good. (Thanks to Liz and Lisa for the link.)

John Green posts this kinetic typography video of a section of Paper Towns:



(What is wrong with me that I still haven't read Paper Towns??) And, um, kinetic typography is really freakin' cool. If you like Blink 182, check out this video, too.

Remember that there's still time to enter Steph's Dust of 100 Dogs contest. Purchase Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King and send proof to Steph by March 1 to be entered to win lots of awesome prizes including over $100 in gift cards and a whole bagful of signed books! I haven't read it yet, but I'm thinking that trekking through the frozen wasteland to my favorite independent bookstore tomorrow might be the perfect opportunity to procure the book and enter the contest... HMM. :)

And speaking of contests, there's still time to enter my giveaway for an advance copy of Something Maybe by Elizabeth Scott! Leave a comment on the giveaway post by this Saturday at midnight (that's tomorrow!!) for your chance to win this very sweet and fun book. If you like YA romance like Sarah Dessen, you'll want to check out this book!