Vietnamese Children's Favorite Stories, retold by Tran Thi Minh Phuoc

One of the rewards of being part of the first round of the Cybils Awards is the addition of interesting books to your to be read pile--I find that the opportunity for publisher to nominate a limited number of their own books results in getting review copies of things I'd never heard of, and am glad to now have read!  One such book in my category of Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction is Vietnamese Children's Favorite Stories, retold by Tran Thi Minh Phuoc, illustrated by Nguyen Thi Hop and Nguyen Dong (Tuttle Publishing, 2015).

This anthology of 15 hero tales, just-so stories, and straight out fairy tales, good for kids 6-9ish,  is both entertaining and informative.  I was happy to expand the range of my own interior holding of folktales, and particularly glad to learn from one of the hero tales (Le Loi and the Magic Sword) a bit of Vietnamese history that I was never taught in school (I very much like historical knowledge painlessly acquired in this way!).  The writing is smooth and nicely descriptive without being cluttered--I can easily imagine reading these stories out loud, and at three to six or so pages each (with lots of space taken by illustrations) they are a good read-aloud length. 

I found the illustrations pleasant, but not remarkable; they seemed to me to be not dissimilar in style to old fashioned American fairy tale anthologies of my own child hood back in the 1970s... but because you don't have to trust me viz illustrations, here's what School Library Journal said: "The delicate and detailed watercolor illustrations elegantly enhance the appeal of this work."  Here's what I can say with conviction--the cover is gorgeous and inviting as all get out.

So basically this is a fine book to offer the kid who wants fairy tales of many lands, be they Vietnamese themselves or not, and a very fine book for parents to get a hold of if they want to expand the imaginations of their young.  It's a good, solid, authentic addition to any library's shelves.

Here's the Kirkus Review, with which I am in agreement.

Upside-down Magic, by Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, and Emily Jenkins

Upside-down Magic, by Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, and Emily Jenkins (Scholastic 2015)

Nory's magic is wonkey.  She has a gift for transforming herself, but it always goes wrong.  When she tried for Kitten, for instance, a bit of beaver gets mixed in...and so Nory is, with good reason, anxious about the Big Test that will determine if she gets a place in the school of magic where her father is the headmaster.  Beaver-kittens are not welcome.

Nory doesn't pass.  And her father, who wins my award for jerk father of the year, rejects her utterly, and sends her off to her aunt where she'll be enrolled at a magic school that has a special class for people with upside-down magic like hers.   Her aunt is loving and warm, the other kids, though quirky with regard to their magic, are just fine, and the teacher does her best to make the kids in her class feel good about not being normal, and tries to get them to value their strengths.

But being normal, when it means getting to go home again, and not being teased by the mean kids, is still awfully appealing to Nory.  So she does her best to keep her magic confined in a mental box of Normal.  But just when she's almost mastered strict control, the mean kids with regular magic land (inside joke if you've read the book) one of her classmates in serious danger.  Nory has to tap into her upside-down gift in order to save him, and she does. 

It's a fun story, and though there is clearly a Lesson (different isn't necessarily bad; be yourself!), that doesn't overshadow the fun--Nory knows she's being lessoned to, as it were, so it's not as though the authors were simply moralizing at the reader.  The happy ending of the weird kids happily having a party together, isn't, though, entirely happy--I'm not convinced that they are convinced that their wonky powers are really worth it.  There's not quite enough external validation, and Nory's father is still a jerk, still rejecting her at the end.

Still, it's  one a second to fourth grader might well enjoy; any much older and they might feel the message was too obvious and not quite satisfactorily played out.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Clover's Luck (Book 1 of The Magical Adoption Agency) by Kallie George

Clover's Luck (Book 1 of The Magical Adoption Agency) by Kallie George (Disney-Hyperion February 3, 2015, out in paperback Oct 6) is a charming magical creature fantasy for the young--give this one to the third or fourth grader who dreams of having a magical pet of their own!

Clover is pretty sure she is utterly unlucky, and this feeling is confirmed when her pet bird escapes (she has especial bad luck with pets, which hurts, because she loves the so).  She follows the escapee into the woods, very sorry for herself, and rather anxious, for the people in her village always made a point of staying far from the Woods, knowing the forest to be a strange and unchancy place.   But Clover is plucky and keeps going, and sees a sign that seems to be written just for her, calling for volunteers who love animal s to help at the M.A.A.A.  So follows the directions to The Magical Animal Adoption Agency, where no pet is too unusual to adopt.

And by "unusual" the agency really means "unusual"--enchanted toads, unicorns, and even a young dragon are currently in residence.  Clover is thrilled to have found the best way imaginable to spend her summer!  But when the proprietor of the M.A.A.A. takes off almost immediately, leaving Clover in charge, she has more responsibility than she wants.  Strange folk come seeking to adopt the creatures, and it's up to Clover not just to feed and water the animals, but to make sure they are going to the right homes....which is a pretty challenging task that makes for fun reading!  Lots of small twists and turns of story lead to happy endings, and Clover realizes she's not unlucky after all!

Like I said above, a nice friendly story great for elementary school readers who would rather cuddle dragons than slay them!  There are nice bits of humor, and Clover is a pleasantly relatable protagonist, force to rise to a challenging occasion.  Lots of good description brings the agency and its denizens to vivid life, and the sense that there is more magic out there beyond the Woods adds a touch of depth and complexity to the world building. 

Clover's Luck is eligible for the Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction Cybils Award this year, but has not yet been nominated (edited to add--I take it back. It's been nominated as an early chapter book, although I am thinking it might be on the less early chapter book side of things....it's a fuzzy line).  If you are interested in nominating an EMG Speculative Fiction book , or any other book from the past year in a variety of categories, please head over here to the Cybils Award site by Oct 15!

Dayshaun's Gift, by Zetta Elliott, for Timeslip Tuesday

Dayshaun's Gift, by Zetta Elliott (Create Space, Sept 2015, older elementary), is the second of her City Kids books, in which urban kids get a chance to have magical adventures.  The first was The Phoenix on Baker Street (my review), which was a rare example of lovely magic coming into the lives of kids in a modern urban setting.  This one is a time travel story, and so less extraordinarily fantastical, but it's good too.

Dayshaun would (unsurprisingly) rather stay peacefully at home playing video games than go out into the heat with his mother to work in the community garden in their Brooklyn neighborhood.  But she insists...and I guess either she's more consistently forceful mother than I am, or Dayshaun is a more cooperative child, but after only limited resistance from his part the two of them set off to the historic area where their garden is planted.

Working amongst the cabbages, the heat gets so intense that Dayshaun is driven to putting on his grandfather's worn old hat...and with a wave of dizziness, he's transported 150 years back in time!  He keeps his head remarkably well, and becomes friendly with two local kids who don't seem to notice anything odd about him, and he goes with them to take food to a group of African Americans who have been forced to flee from their homes in Manhattan because of the rioting there related to the Civil War military draft.

Dayshaun is moved by the plight of the refugees, and forms a bond with one old man in particular, who gives him a handful of heirloom tomato seeds he'd brought with him when he escaped slavery in Virginia.  Dayshaun, who soon afterwards finds himself in his own time again, gives them to his mother to plant, and so the heritage of generations can grow again, making this garden an even more special place.

It's a story full of history and creates a lovely sense of a place rooted in the past. I'm a gardener myself, and am all in favor of urban greenspaces, so I appreciated that aspect of the book lots, and I think I would  have back when I was the age of the target audience.   It's not one for every kid though--there is little tension, and no sense of danger to Dayshaun.  He has a remarkably stress-free time travel experience, though he is clearly aware of the horrible stress endured by the refugees.  This lack of urgency to the plot makes it, I think, one perhaps better suited to peaceful reading out loud to a seven or eight year old than one to give a reluctant reader who demands excitement (though of course the basic story of time travel offers some excitement in its own right!).  And reading it outloud gives kids a chance to hear about race riots in the past with a grownup who can clarify and comfort, if needed.   Kids growing up in Brooklyn will especially appreciate this new look at their own place, but Dayshaun is a relatable protagonist for any kid forced to spend Saturday away from their electronic devices.

Here's a nice afterward by the author.

disclaimer:  review copy received from the author

Hamster Princess: Harriet the Invicible, a most unusal Sleeping Beauty re-imagining by Ursula Vernon

I find the word "hamster" rather endearing.  I find the idea of a hamster princess who wants to go forth and have adventures likewise endearing.  And though I think Ursula Vernon is slightly better at drawing charming newts and dragons (as in her Dragonbreath books) than she is at drawing hamsters, she still draws appealing ones.   So I was primed to enjoy Hamster Princess: Harriet the Invincible (Dial, August 2015) very much, and I did.

Princess Harriet is ten when she learns that she is cursed to prick herself on a hamster wheel when she turns twelve, at which point she will fall into a deep sleep, from which the kiss of prince will awaken her.  Her parents have thoughtfully installed a resident, and suitable, prince, so that their daughter won't be kissed awake by a stranger.  Harriet does not react with typical princessly droopy-ness to the news of the curse, nor is she much interested in the prince.   What thrills her is the news that since she's fated to be around at the age of 12, until then she is invincible!  (although it seems to me that she could still be injured fairly badly and still be alive enough to be cursed at 12.....)

First she jumps off the highest tower of the castle, then off she goes on her faithful riding quail Mumfrey (who adds tons of cute) to battle monsters, sometimes saving people from dragons, sometimes saving dragons from princesses.  But she comes home for her birthday...and confronts the evil fairy who cursed her, inadvertently managing to turn the curse back on the fairy, who then falls into the enchanted sleep...along with everyone else in Harriet's castle!  Including the prince.

So clearly Harriet's next quest is to find a prince willing to wake everyone up with kisses...and then she can figure out how to deal with the fairy once and for all!

It's a tremendously enjoyable subversion of passive princess tropes, and the lovely absurdity of the animal characters is tremendously charming!  Though the language and vocabulary are somewhat more sophisticated than one would expect from a first chapter book for emergent readers, it is graphic heavy, making it very friendly indeed for uncertain readers in 2nd and 3rd grades in particular, or strong young 1st grade readers, or older elementary school kids, and even middle school ones, who like cute funny books, or grown ups who like saying the word "hamster."  I enjoyed it lots. And I think it's a great princess book to give to little boys so that they can get it into their heads that princess books can have broad appeal.

This broad appeal has created a bit of a dilemma for me--Harriet has been nominated for the Cybils as an Early Chapter Book (this is where the Dragonbreath books mostly ended up too).  I think it would be happy in that category, but I think it would also be happy as an Elementary/middle grade nominee (the category I'm the organizer for).   Elementary includes eight year olds, who will love it...I shall have to confer with the Early Chapter book chair, and look deep into the depths of my own mind to make sure I'm not wanting it just because I like it so much.

You can follow the link above to see all the Cybils nominees thus far, and perhaps nominate your own!

Two fun Adventures in Cartooning tales--Sleepless Knight and Gryphons Aren't So Great

Adventures In Cartooning, by James Sturm, Andrew Arnold, and Alexis Frederick-Frost introduced Edward the Horse and the knight who is his companion in adventure.  Now Edward and the knight have their own stories, stand-alone graphic novels for the young.  Sleepless Knight and Gryphons  Aren't so Great are top notch books to offer the 5 to 8 year old whose just getting going with the fun of graphic novel reading!

In Sleepless Knight (FirstSecond, April 2015)  Edward and the knight head off on a camping trip.  But though the knight's teddy bear was carefully packed, when bed time comes, it can't be found.  A helpful bunny tells the knight where bear is....but the bear in question isn't stuffed!  All ends well, though, with Edward bringing out his ukulele to sing with the bear and bunny by the campfire, while the knight snoozes with the real teddy.

In Gryphons Aren't So Great (FirstSecond Sept 15 2015), the knight finds a Gryphon who's willing to fly her around.  Poor Edward is left earthbound while the knight whoops it up in the sky.  But gryphons aren't reliable, and Edward has to make a daring leap to save the knight when things go wrong.   And the knight realizes that she'd been thoughtless, and she and Edward decide that jumping into the moat from the castle towers is great fun they can have together.  (You can get a sneak peak here at FirstSecond).

So nice, simple stories little kids can relate too, told in simple language and told with really  charming pictures of great kid friendliness.  Don't expect much instruction in cartooning--the inside front and back covers have instructions on how to draw the characters, but that it.  Do expect young readers to be charmed (I was!), and to look forward to more about Edward and the knight!

NB:  I had defaulted to assuming the knight was male, since gender was never specified, but the publisher's blurb makes it clear that the knight is actually "she." 

Here's my 2010 review of The Adventures in Cartooning Activity Book--I still think Edward is my favorite graphic novel horse ever!

disclaimer: review copies received from the publisher

Captain Underpants and the Sensational Saga of Sir Stinks-a-Lot, by Dav Pilkey, for Timeslip Tuesday

In his past few books, Dav Pilkey has thrown in time travel to jazz things up, because why not?  And it's a good thing, too, because it saves the day for George and Harold, as they face off against a new villain, in Captain Underpants and the Sensational Saga of Sir Stinks-a-Lot!  (Scholastic,  August 25, 2015)

George and Harold, in a twist they'd never have seen coming, must find adults they can trust to help them out of a stinky situation.  Their gym teacher has acquired to turn children into obedient goody goodies, and our heroes must stop him before they too fall victim to his foul miasma.  But with even their own parents favorably impressed by the good children, George and Harold must take drastic action--the only adults they can trust are their own future selves!  So they travel to the future, to bring their adult-selves into the battle in the present.

It was fun to see their grown-up selves!  George and Harold are unencumbered by deep reflections on the paradoxes of time travel, so there were no particularly worrying concerns about altering the future.  This is about as worried as anyone gets, and made me chuckle:

"Wait a minute," said Old Harold.  "I don't remember doing any of this when we were kids, do you, George?"

"No," said Old George.  "If this happened in our past, how come we have no memory of it?"

"I don't know," said Harold.

"Probably bad writing," said George.

As an added time travel bonus, George and Harold get to read one of the graphic novels their adult selves have published (an us readers get a peak at it ourselves!).

But in a twist I never saw coming, Captain Underpants might have fought his last battle!  Will this, the 12th book, be his last?????

It's as funny as all the other Captain Underpants books, and fans of the series will enjoy it. 

Lily Quench and the Treasure of Mote Ely, by Natalie Jane Prior (for Timeslip Tuesday)

Lily Quench and the Treasure of Mote Ely, by Natalie Jane Prior (Puffin 2004) was supposed to have been the Timeslip Tuesday book both last week and the week before, but things happened that kept me from finishing it the first week, and the second week I just didn't feel like it.  But here it is now, even though I still don't have much to say about it.

The Lily Quench books are a series, currently at seven books, first published in Australia.  They are Elementary grade-level fantasy, good for strong readers in second and third grades, 7 or 8 year olds.  They tell of the adventures of young Lily, last of  family of Dragon Slayers, who sets off to slay a dragon and save her kingdom...and ends up becoming friends with the Dragon Queen. 

Lily Quench and the Treasure of Mote Ely is the third of the series, and the only one I've read.   Lily is kidnapped and dragged back into the past.  There she must search for a long lost treasure, keep a rampaging dragon from killing her and the friends ho have followed her back in time,  while thwarting the bad guys.

It's fairly standard light medieval castle adventure, perfectly fine, but not remarkable.  What makes it interesting from a time travel point of view is that the attacking dragon is Lily's own dragon friend in the present...who of course has no memory of their friendship.   A nice twist, that's surprisingly rare in time travel books.

In any event, if you do have an elementary school-aged kid who likes medievally adventures and human-dragon friendships, this is a perfectly fine series (and it is always a lovely peaceful feeling as a parent to hook a kid on a series...).  If you are not such a kid yourself, there's no particular reason to read this, although I did not mind reading this one.   Apparently (based on a Goodreads review) Lily is more of an active heroine in other books, which may well make those more appealing to older readers...

Pip Bartlett's Guide to Magical Creatures, by Jackson Pearce and Maggie Steifvater

Pip Bartlett's Guide to Magical Creatures, by Jackson Pearce and Maggie Steifvater (April 2015, Scholastic, older elementary/younger middle grade). Here's one for everyone who dreams of befriending magical creatures, and who has enough sense to realize that caring for unicorns, griffins, and a whole newly imagined slew of other fantastical animals isn't all rainbows and butterflies! 

 

Young Pip Bartlett can talk to magical creatures, and in her version of our world, there are lots of them around to talk too!  After a disastrous unicorn riding episode and its concomitant property damage (no one, including the unicorns, had warned her!) Pip is sent off to her Aunt Emma, veterinarian of the Cloverton Clinic for Magical Creatures for some solid learning and hard work.   Though no one believes Pip can actually chat with the creatures, her gift is real, and when Aunt Emma's town becomes the site of a fuzzle infestation, it saves the day. 

 

The fuzzles look cute enough, but as pets they have issues--bursting into flame when agitated or excited (which happens lots), and they breed faster than rabbits.   No one likes the contents of their underwear drawers catching fire (underwear drawers being favored fuzzle hangouts), and Aunt Emma, the resident authority on magical creatures, is under a lot of pressure to contain the outbreak. 

 

It takes a bit of sleuthing by Pip and her new friend Tomas (allergic to just about everything, including magical creatures, but still a stalwart companion) to find out what's behind the plague of fuzzles, but Pip is nothing if not determined...

 

It's fun and amusing, and pages from "Jeffrey Higgleston's Guide to Magical Creatures" interspersed with will please the young magical creature fan for whom the idea of chatting with griffins et al. seems wonderful, but who can handle the idea that not every such creature is going to have a rainbow/butterfly personality!  It's an elementary/lower middle grade type book,  an excellent one to offer a confidently reading third grade or fourth grader, and fans of Suzanne Selfor's Imaginary Veterinary Series should eat it up!

 

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

The Unbelievable Top Secret Diary of Pig, by Emer Stamp

The Unbelievable Top Secret Diary of Pig, by Emer Stamp (April 28, 2015, Scholastic) is a fun early chapter book in which a not desperately intelligent but pleasant young pig chronicles his life on the farm, with a generous number of illustrations.   Some parts of Pig's life are good--the tasty slops, and his friendship with Duck.  Others are not--the Evil Chickens, and the Horrible Horror of finding out the reason behind the generous servings of slops (which is, of course, Death by Farmer).

The Evil Chickens are not exactly Evil, but they are preternaturally intelligent, and they feel that Pig is the perfect candidate pilot their barnyard-made rocket (powered by poo) on its mission to Pluto.  Pig, embittered by his new knowledge that he's being fattened to be killed, decides to take them up on the offer.  Duck, a good friend, sneaks on board too.  The rocket actually does blast off, and their journey does take them to strange new worlds, though not to Pluto....and ends up offering a possibility solution to the problems of the murderous farmer and the evil chickens.....

It's a friendly sort of book for young readers, especially those who are amused by flatulence, although there are other amusing elements for those of us who aren't particularly fond of farts.  Some emotional depth comes from Pig's predicament, and the whole travel-to-Pluto plot element is full of sci-fi interest.   Adults might well find that Pig's frequent grammatical errors (such as "Today I is very happy!) do not add value; kids might well disagree.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Beast Keeper (Beasts of Olympus #1), by Lucy Coats

Beast Keeper (Beasts of Olympus #1), by Lucy Coats, with many illustrations by Brett Bean (Grosset & Dunlap, Jan. 2015) is the story of how an ordinary boy in ancient Greece gets whisked up to Olympus to look after the menagerie of mythological creatures that are kept there (to be sent down to earth as required for hero-proving purposes).   10-year-old Demon (short for Pandemonium) is only normal for a certain value of normal--his dad's Pan, god of wild creatures.  And so Demon has a preternatural knack for monster-whispering, that comes in handy when confronted with the wild and wacky beasts of Olympus....but it's not the poo (though there's plenty of it) or even the terrible wounds inflicted by Hercules on his charges, that makes Demon anxious--instead it's that nasty sense that he's only a whisker away from provoking immortal wrath (the Greek Gods and Goddess being the sort of divinities they are).

But it all ends well, and there are more books to come (Hound of Hades is also out now, and Steeds of the Gods comes in May).

Beast Keeper is a perfectly reasonable book to have on the shelves of a second grade class library.   It will probably become dog-eared.  It's sequels will be asked for.  It's a premise with lots of kid appeal (what a dream come true for the animal lover to look after mythological creatures!) and for some of those kids, the poo references will add to the fun.    There's no particular reason why anyone who's left elementary school should read it (it doesn't offer anything especially original or beautifully enchanting), but not every book needs to reach beyond its target audience.

It's possible, of course, that I approached this book without an open mind--my own boy, when he was ten, wrote several chapters of a very similar story, called "Hades' Pet Keeper."  And I liked it, perhaps even a bit better than this one, in a maternally-biased way devoid of critical thought etc. way.....

I also think I like the UK illustrator's style a bit more  (the US Demon looked like a video game character, and I like the more classically Greek UK version better:

Knight-napped! (Dragonbreath Book 10), by Ursula Vernon

I love love love the Dragonbreath books, and I thrill to each new installment of the adventures of Danny Dragonbreath and his friends Wendell and Christina and all the other assorted reptile and amphibian characters who fill the pages of this series.   If you want a book to offer a seven or eight-year old with a sense of humor, especially an eight-year old who is maybe a bit geeky and who appreciates the snarky absurd, a Dragonbreath book is the Right Answer!!! 

In this installment, Knight-napped (Dial Jan. 2015), Danny's annoying cousin Spenser has been kidnapped by knights, and Danny and his friends rush off to the knights' castle to save him.  It is the details that make this fun, and happily there are enough details to make it very fun.

Why do I love these books?  Because Reasons, as my own boys would say, the reasons being:

1.  The books include of lots of graphics--illustrations that continue the action, as well as some that just illustrate, that break up the text and make things reader friendly for elementary school readers. 

2.  The above-referenced graphics delight me with their charm and personality.  So simple, yet so expressive! 

3.  Christina is a really really cool smart savvy feminist lizard and I love her.

4.  I like Wendell too, who is also a smart geek.

5.  I like Danny too, who though not book smart has his moments.....

6.  But mostly I love these books because I am grinning pretty much the whole time I read one, and that is good, because smiling actually forces the brain to release chemicals that make you happier.   So it is total win.

Here are Danny and Wendell climbing a tower; they have reached a gargoyle quite near the top, and
Wendell (terrified) perches desperately on it.

"You can't just stay there," said Danny.  "I mean, I suppose you can, but we don't  have much time to save Spenser-"

"You go save Spencer," said Wendell, eyes tightly shut.   "I will stay with the gargoyle.  I will name him Mister Scowly and we will be friends."  (page 126)

The Zero Degree Zombie Zone, by Patrik Henry Bass

The Zero Degree Zombie Zone, by Patrik Henry Bass (Scholastic Inc., August 2014, not quite middle grade) -- an exciting story of fourth-graders vs ice zombies!

Bakari Katari Johnson never wanted to be on the election slate for the position of Hall Monitor.  Poised, popular Tariq had always done a fine job, and to go up against Tariq meant encuring the wrath of his most fervernt supporter, tough-as-nails (but sweet as all get out to grownups) Keisha.   But to his horror, Bakari finds this his best friend Wardell has added his name to the list.

That is just the start to a very bad day indeed, one that involves the frozen seven-foot high lord of a land of ice zombies...who just happens to think that Bakari has his lost ring.   Turns out Keisha has it.  And so an unlikely alliance of the four kids is formed in order to take down the ice zombies popping into their school with evil intent.

But disposing of the zombies traps the kids in the ice realm, and the outlook gets rather chilly indeed....

This is one for the older elementary aged kid, the seven to nine year old/third or fourth grader, and it's short (131 pages of generous font with illustrations).  So there's not really room to fully explore the backstory of the ice realm zombies and their overlord, and if there was an explanation of why the ring ended up in this particular school, I missed it.   Those looking for full blown fantasy will therefore be disappointed.

But the four kids avoid being simple stock sterotypes, and the action is fast (zip!  a trip to the ice land!  Zap--more ice zombies after you in the halls!  Cool ice-ring lassoing job, Keisha! etc.). If you have kids who aren't interested in  the heft of full blown fantasy, who are simply looking for a fun book in which real life kids have real life problems alongside the excitement of ice zombie attacks in the cafeteria problems, this might very well be a good one.   The illustrations add friendliness for the uncertain reader.

The Zero Degree Zombie Zone is, as far as I know, unique in that the entire cast is African American--four pretty cool looking kids, as shown on the cover, and not one of them white.   So a good one for those actively seeking out multicultural kids' fantasy.

It is also a nice example of how to gracefully get out of running for an office you never wanted in the first place without loosing face (Bakari does a great job of this at the end of the book), which is truly a useful life lesson..........

The Nick and Tesla series, by "Science Bob" Pflugfelder and Steve Hockensmith.

If you are looking for books to give to young (8-10 year olds) who enjoy hands-on science fun mixed with adventure, look no further than the Nick and Tesla series, by "Science Bob" Pflugfelder and Steve Hockensmith.

Nick and Tesla are eleven-year-old siblings sent to live with their eccentric (to put it kindly) uncle, a mad scientist type of person, while their parents are off being scientists in central Asia.   Uncle Newt has done his best to welcome them to the small town of Half Moon Bay  (they each have their own composting bed!).  Though Nick and Tesla aren't thrilled with their uncle's approach to housekeeping, they are excited by the possibilities of the gadget filled house and the open invitation to treat the place as a maker space for their own inventions.

And they will need to!

In the first of the series (High Voltage Danger Lab) the siblings rescue a kidnapped kid.  In the second (Robot Army Rampage) they thwart a robber, and in the third (Secret Agent Gadget Battle) the stakes get even higher as Nick and Tesla themselves are in danger.  The four book (Super Cyborg Gadget Glove) pits the kids against an assortment of robotic scientists gone haywire...for mysterious reasons!  

It becomes clear as the books progress from simple neighborhood mysteries to actual danger that the kids' parents are not simple soybean scientists, but are in fact involved in something far more consequential....the sort of thing that you wouldn't want falling into the hands of dangerous bad guys.   And Nick and Tesla, there in Half Moon Bay, are not as safe as their parents might hope....

The stories are standard fun adventures of the sort where the kids outwit the grownups, but what makes these books really interesting and appealing is that they make good use of their scientific skills to do so!  The books are full of their neat inventions and contrivances, and best of all, there are clear
instructions on how you can build them yourself at home, using readily available materials. (The series' website has videos in which the inventions are demonstrated for those who need more help!)

I am tempted to build a few bug bots myself!

Here's what I especially liked--Nick gets first billing in the title, but it is his sister Tesla who is really the leader.  If you want fiction to offer an elementary school girl to encourage her scientific endeavours, I can't think of better books.

Here's what else I liked--one of their two local friends, two boys who get to be sidekicks and companions in adventure, just happens to be black, shown that way in the illustrations, adding a bit of diversity that I appreciated.

So in any event, these are the sort of books that would make great presents for a fourth grader who likes science, but do be sure to check out what you will need for the inventions before handing it over, because your young reader might well want to set to work immediately.....

The Phoenix on Barkley Street, by Zetta Elliott with (pathetically short) list of early chapter book fantasies with kids of color

Quick--think of a fantasy book written for early elementary aged kids of 8 or so, where the fantasy stars a group of minority kids and takes place in an urban neighborhood where gangs and abandoned properties are big problems, just like they are in many places in real life, and where the fantasy part itself is something truly beautiful and magical and hopeful....

I can think of one, because I just read it-- The Phoenix on Barkley Street, by Zetta Elliott (self published, August 2014, ages 7-9), and tomorrow I will take it to a Little Free Library that is in just such a neighborhood, and hope that it falls into the hands of young readers who haven't yet been told that magic can happen to kids just like them.

The city block where Carlos and Tariq live used to be a happy, fun place.  But people moved away, and gangs moved in, and the swings in the park broke and were never fixed.  Then one day the boys find a loose board in the fenced backyard of an abandoned house. They decide to clean up the garden, and make it their own safe place, but before they can even get started, Tariq's little sister and her friend find their way in, and once they are there, there's no point in evicting them because they know how to get back (me--my sympathies are with the boys on this one, but it's nice to have girls in the story too...)

And there in the garden there is a phoenix, a real, genuine magical phoenix-- beautiful, strange, and lovely.  The kids don't know it's a phoenix at first, but happily there's a library nearby (me--yay for kids using the library!), and it seems like the garden, with its magical resident, will be even more wonderful a place than they had imagined.   The cleaning up goes well (me--I love a nice garden clean up story!)...but then disaster strikes.

Older boys who are gang members find their way in and wreck everything (me--noooooo!) and menace the littler kids and are just plain mean and hateful.

Thanks to the phoenix, it works out well in the end (me--except I'd rather have a secret garden than a public park, even though I know that's selfish!).

So it's a good story, and the writing is just right for a third or fourth grade reader getting their reading legs under them, as it were, and yay! for diversity and urban fantasy targeted at this age group.  And yay! for kids of color in fantasy books for elementary school readers--I think it's awfully important to have lots of these, so that every kid can be given a place at the table of the imagination, and there really aren't many at all.  Once you know that you can be in a fantasy story, you can allow yourself to dream whatever you want.....

This is Book One of Zetta Elliott's "City Kids" series--I'll look forward to the rest!

(me--still sad for the ruined garden.  would have liked maybe a hundred more pages of time in the garden fixing it up before it got ruined.  sigh.)

note: this is a self-published book, but the quality and design are such that this is not evident, and it would blend in beautifully with all the other early chapter books on a classroom shelf...

disclaimer: review copy received from the author at Kidlitcon.


Appendix:

Here is my working list of first chapter books/young elementary school books that are fantasies with kids of color:

The Magic Mirror, by Zetta Elliott (2014)

Mouldylocks and the Three Beards, and Little Red Quaking Hood (Princess Pink series), by Noah Z. Jones (2014)

You can also add Captain Underpants, although that's more graphic novel than chapter book.

It sure would be great to have a longer list....

Nuts to You, by Lynne Rae Perkins

Although there have been plenty of animal fantasy books that I've loved over the years, I am suspicious of the genre as a whole.  Too often I have read animal books in which there is no clear reason why the characters are that particular sort of animal, which bothers me, and sometimes the cute and whimsical and precious are emphasized at the expense of the story.

So I have been putting off reading Nuts To You, by Lynne Rae Perkins (Greenwillow,  August 2014, ages 7-11ish), until yesterday morning.  Had it not been for its nomination for the Cybils Awards, I would probably have put it off forever and ever, despite a. Lynne Rae Perkins being a good writer and b. the book showing up on the Publishers Weekly best books of 2014 list and c. October having been Squirrel Awareness Month and d. being a fan of Scaredy Squirrel.

One of my many admirable character traits (besides modesty) is my willingness to admit I was wrong.

I was wrong in this case.

Because I really truly enjoyed Nuts to You, and thought the squirrel adventures were great and delightfully squirrely, and it was funny and I liked the pictures.   The squirrels were recognizably squirrels (as opposed to, say, voles) and it wasn't sweetly precious at all.

Brief summary:  Jed gets snatched by a hawk...but luck is on his side.  His friend, TsTs, sees him fall from the talons, and she and another friend set off to find him, following the power lines.   The finding part is the challenge, because the characters are, after all, squirrels, and if you have ever watched squirrels you will have noticed that they rarely travel in straight lines, and they scatter easily...

It is a good thing that Jed got snatched, because it turns out that the trees along the power lines are being cleared, and the squirrel homeland is in danger.  Happily this never becomes a Fantasy Danger, in which the chainsaws are sabotaged by heroic squirrels or something like that.  Instead it is the much more plausible "how the heck do you get a bunch of squirrels to believe their home is in danger when all they are thinking about is autumnal nut gathering" sort of story.

And like I said, it is funny, and I liked the individual squirrels as characters.  I especially appreciated the "loyalty to friends" motif not just because I like loyal friendships myself, but because I think it something the target audience of fourth and fifth graders really appreciates too.   Possibly even third graders, possibly even sixth.

Helping Hercules, by Francesca Simon, for Timeslip Tuesday

Helping Hercules, by Francesca Simon (new edition from Orion Press, September 2014, ages 7-9ish) is a fine example of mythological time travel for the young. 

Susan is not a helpful child, not the sort of useful, pleasant child one actually wants to have around.  She slams the door a few extra times when sent to her room (just to make her point), she doesn't think grown-ups should be the boss of her, she doesn't think it necessary that she be responsible for any domestic tasks.  She's really more of an Ideas person (with her main idea being that she shouldn't have to help)....which her family hasn't learned to appreciate.

When an old coin takes her back to the golden age of mythological Greece, seven of the great Greek heros have a hard time appreciating her as well.   Hercules doesn't give her credit for her clever suggestion of rivers as stable cleaners and Orpheus messes up his not-looking-back bit, despite Susan's coaching.  There's nothing to be done about Paris (and Susan finds herself the target of annoyed goddesses, despite her best efforts not to be involved in the doomed beauty contest), but flying on Pegasus is rather lovely for her, though Bellerophon is a jerk.  Perseus, however, is a decent sort, and he actually appreciates Susan's bright ideas (like using his shield for a mirror).  Susan doesn't appreciate finding herself forced to take Andromeda's place (chained to the rock), but all ends well...

And here's Susan's reaction to being turned to gold by King Midas:

"This is boring, thought Susan.
This is very boring, she thought, some time later.
THIS IS EXTREMELY BORING! she fumed.  I always did hate playing musical statues."*

This made me chuckle.  Lots of the book made me chuckle--the Greek heroes (except for Perseus) are such stuck up snots, or else rather wet, like Orpheus, that it was nice to see them helped by/saddled with obnoxious Susan.   And actually Susan rather grew on me--not that she Learned Life Lessons, exactly, from her time in the mythological past, but her brisk egocentrism and forthrightness made a nice foil for the heroic egocentrism she was paired with.

Francesca Simon is the author of the Horrid Henry books, and Helping Hercules would be a natural one to give to any kid who likes those books.   It would also be a good introduction to the Greek hero stories for the kid who is a funny smart aleck, as opposed to a romantic purist mythology snob-- I'm not sure I would have liked the myths mucked with like this back when I was eight or so (although even then I didn't much like Hercules, and I had decided by that point that if I had to marry a Greek hero it would be Perseus, even though he made a Bad Choice at the end, so there you go).  But then again, maybe I would have liked it--I was a Joan Aiken fan, after all, and there is something of an Aiken-ness in the saga of Susan....

Anyway, it's a nice, zippy, funny book, and I enjoyed it at this point in my life and it's easy to imagine lots of kids enjoying it too.

*do kids in the US play musical statues?  My kids never have, and I was overseas at British schools (being very good at musical statues) when I was the right age for party games....

El Deafo, by Cece Bell, or why assuming that an 11-year-old boy wants only "books for 11 year old boys" is kind of pointless

I have an 11-year-old son who is fan of fantasy--a Ranger's Apprentice, Percy Jackson, kind of reader.  Which is just fine--it means that a lot of the middle grade fantasy books I get end up in his room, a help viz shelf space.   So what is his favorite book so far this year? A graphic novel about a rabbit girl who is quite a bit younger than him, and deaf, that isn't fantasy at all except for the rabbit ears.

I had been reading El Deafo, by Cece Bell (Harry N. Abrams, Sept. 2014), for my own reading pleasure, which was considerable--it is a deeply absorbingly warm and relatable book for anyone who has felt different and wanted friends.   And the story of how little rabbit child Cece coped with being especially different after losing her hearing, and how she found her way in the world of school and friends is great and the narrative voice is just right as is the pacing etc etc.  In short, I liked it lots.

And there it was on the sofa (cunningly left there as child book bait), and my son saw it, and picked it up, assuming it's fantasy (flying rabbit girl on the cover) and read the back, criticizing apparent redundancy in the summary: "This funny....memoir about growing up hearing impaired is also an unforgettable book about growing up" and then commented on the weirdness of the rabbit children....but then he started to read.

There are few things that I love to see more than one of my children reading a book they love.  This particular child sits up straighter when he's loving a book, holding it gently but firmly with both hands--you can just see Active Engagement pouring out of him.   Emotions flicker across his face.  He no longer hears external sounds.  He is Reading.

So he finished in a single sitting.  "We are keeping this one," he said. "I love it."

"It is a library book," I said.

[deep dismay]

"But we can buy our own copy."

"Yes!"

So yeah, don't assume 11 year old boys won't read books about little rabbit girls; 6th grade boys worry about friendships too, and being different, and growing up. And 11-year-old boys can be full as all get out with empathy for kids who aren't like them--look at the success of Wonder.   And in these things they are just like rabbit girls, deaf or not.

OMG...Am I a Witch?! by Talia Aikens-Nunez

OMG...Am I a Witch?! by Talia Aikens-Nunez (Pinwheel Books, October 2013) is, a fine choice for the 8 or 9  year old girl who loves dogs (especially small white fluffy ones), thinks it would be fun to have a magical powers, and who isn't quite ready for bigger, more complex books.

April, justifiably annoyed by her older brother, Austin, searches the internet for a spell to turn him into a dog.  And much to her surprise, it works!  Now instead of a bothersome brother, she has a fluffy white dog, whose justifiably annoyed at her!  In the course of the breathless OMG hours of text messages, desperate plotting, secretive sleepovers, and google searches that follow, April and her friends Grace and Eve have to figure out how to turn Austin back...and keep April's parents from finding out.

It's one I think has a lot of appeal for its target audience...and not quite so much appeal for older readers, who might want more of the backstory to the magic (April's new gift is not given much page time, what with all the shenanigans of Austin's dogginess), and it's not desperately complex in terms of plot.    On the plus side, though, it has a nice emphasis on friends helping each other, offers a relatable look at sibling tensions, and the magic (though not fully developed) is entertaining.

Short answer- if they like the cover, they'll like the book!   

disclaimer: review copy received from the author

The Magic Mirror, by Zetta Elliott, for Timeslip Tuesday

This week's Timeslip Tuesday book is The Magic Mirror, by Zetta Elliott (Rosetta Press, August 2014, for younger elementary school-aged readers), and it makes me very happy that it's the first book I'm reviewing after taking part in all the discussions of diverse books at Kidlitcon, and meeting Zetta in person! 

Kamara goes to her grandmother's house sad and hurt by the words of a mean boy in her class...and her grandmother knows just what will help.   She sends Kamara up to the guest room at the end of the hall on the second floor to clean one of the family heirlooms--an old mirror.  And as Kamara starts to clean, she looks at her reflection and wonders if her grandmother is just being kind when she calls her beautiful....

And the mirror begins to show her girls and women from the past--taking her on a journey through history.  She sees a captured girl being forced onto a slave ship, and then an older girl (the same one?) planning to escape for freedom.  She sees a young teacher at the turn of the century saving her books and students from a school deliberately set on fire, and then she jumps twenty years on to a young poet in Harlem.  The next picture shows a woman facing prejudice in the factories of WW II, but doing her part regardless, and then two scenes from the Civil Rights era.  And finally, the mirror shows her something that warms her heart most of all--her own mother graduating from college, the first in the family to do so.

The strength and courage and beauty of these girls and women from the past fill Kamara's heart, and are balm to her spirit.

I can easily imagine this story being one that many young readers in Kamara's shoes today will also find heartening--Kamara's feelings and self-doubt might well mirror their own.  Books like this can also be windows, that let kids look past their own spaces into other lives--and so it shouldn't be one that's just given to only to young readers who look like Kamara.  Yes, it is a book with a Message, celebrating strong Black women and girls through history, and sometimes the message is stronger than the magic of the story, but it is written for young readers for whom the message might well be new, and it's one they deserve to hear.  Yes, it is didactic in that points are underlined with a firm hand, but anyone who spends time with young kids knows that underlining is helpful pretty much essential if you want them to hear you.

That all being said, my favorite part of Kamara's story is the fact that her grandmother lives in a big, old house with shut-up rooms full of family history.  Quick--how many books for elementary school readers have African American kids whose family homes are big old Victorian houses with glass doorknobs and so many rooms that some are never used?  Yay for this story, for adding such a home to the places where readers can imagine kids of color.   (And lots of bonus points for doorknobs, says I, because I really really appreciate authors who include details like this that ring so true to those of us wrestling with our own historic doors).

Continuing on this line of thought, I myself would have liked to have seen more unexpected scenes in the magic mirror than those it shows to Kamara--ones that challenge standard expectations.   I would love to read the story of a family like this one, adding color to our mental images of the Victorians and pushing against the common default to stories of slavery.

 But again, I'm not the intended audience, and the stories that Zetta Elliott tells here are important ones that all young readers, regardless of gender or ethnicity, need to make part of their mental storehouse of history.

(For time travel purists out there--this one counts as a timeslip because Kamara is not just a passive observer-the people she's seeing also see and acknowledge her).

disclaimer: review copy received from the author