The Looking Glass Wars

Alice in Wonderland is one of those books, at least for me, that was fun to read as a child, but then when I reread it as an adult, it had me wondering if  Charles Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll) wasn’t a but touched.  In The Looking Glass Wars, Frank Beddor takes this classic children’s tale and turn it on its head.

The premise is that Alice (or more correctly, Alyss) really is from Wonderland, but Dodgson just thinks she is a little girl with a powerful imagination and ends up twisting her story into a fantastical journey.  The novel focuses on the violent political upheaval in Wonderland that led to Alyss’s exile into our world and her attempt to wrest control of Wonderland away from her evil Aunt Redd upon her return.

The book has some wonderful lessons about what it means to be a good leader, as well as on using imagination, knowledge, and technology responsibly.

The story itself is creative, fast paced, and entertaining.  My only critique is that there are a few moments when the description of White Imagination and Black Imagination comes a little too close to the Light and Dark Sides of the Force, especially when the narrator is trying to make the point that anger leads to Black Imagination.

Overall, I was very pleased with this variation on the Alice tales. It manages to update the story for an older/different audience while staying true to the imaginative foundation laid by Dodgson.

June 24, 2010   Posted in: fantasy, fiction, retold fairy tale, Young Adult  No Comments

The Heir Series

My brother recommended these books to me, so I suppose that he should really be the one to write the review.  He doesn’t feel all that confident in his writing (yet), so you’ll have to put up with my version, yet again.

As far as fantasy for young adults goes, these books are some of the best I’ve read in a while.  The stories are set in modern times, but with the twist that there are magical guilds living among us of which the Anaweir (those of us without any powers) are completely unaware.  Each book focuses on a separate main character, with their stories interweaving without any kind of backtracking in the storyline, meaning that each novel furthers the chronology rather than rehashing things.  I thought it was pretty creative, though you do tend to miss the previous characters that you had connected with.  (They are still there, but not as well developed, becoming a little two-dimensional.)

While some may take issue with the use of magic in the story, I think it is done perfectly here.  (Remember, though, that I usually don’t have issues with fictional magic and believe that it is a natural outgrowth of a healthy imagination, so those of you dead set against magic in any form will want to take my assessment with a grain of salt or reevaluate why you believe magic, and maybe even imagination, is inherently evil.)  Ultimately, in each novel, the abilities of the characters and the guilds are seen as something that should be used for good.  The message seems to be the age old adage that power corrupts, and that without the fear of something greater and more powerful than ourselves, human beings tend to get out of line.

While the novels are not overtly Christian, the themes tie in very nicely with our faith.  Each character struggles to find purpose in life while dealing with difficult situations.  They often seek guidance from those older and wiser than themselves.  They value life and eschew violence except in self-defense.

I really enjoyed all three books, but I did have a few very slight issues with the writing itself.  The only problem I had with the first book, The Warrior Heir, was that it was a little predictable (though, my brother disagrees with me completely, for what it’s worth).  A good deal of the climax of the story was obvious to me a short ways into the novel.  As I mentioned before, I also have a difficult time adjusting to the changing character focus–I missed Jack, and was not at all happy when the third book begins with a focus on Jason, who was a character that I wasn’t particularly fond of in the second book.

My only other issue was with the third book and is a problem that I’ve noticed with other young adult novels.  The exposition and rising action seem to take FOREVER, even starting to drag a bit in places, but by the time you get to the climax, it is starting to feel like details are just getting glossed over.  There are some pretty significant events in the climax that really do not get the emotional impact that they should because the pacing is off.  Then the resolution just sort of zips by as if being told by a mother impatient to get through story time so that her child will finally go to sleep.  I suspect that Chima was nearing the page limit set by her publisher and was eager to tie up all the loose ends quickly.

Overall, though, I really enjoyed reading all three books.  Chima tells a wonderfully creative and imaginative tale that definitely kept me reading and has me hoping for more.  Plus, for those who are interested in this sort of thing, there is a rather subtle allusion to Hamlet in chapter two of The Dragon Heir.


June 3, 2010   Posted in: fantasy, fiction, Young Adult  One Comment

Uprising

This novel isn’t a page-turner, but it is certainly a good historical novel.  The story centers around the events that led up to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which was the catalyst that finally initiated significant reforms to workplace laws that actually protect workers.

The novels follows three young girls that are all tied to the factory in some way.  Bella is a recent immigrant from Italy.  Mostly on her own, she has come to America in an effort to save her family from starvation, but finds herself exploited and cheated at every turn, both by her bosses and by her landlady.

Yetta is a young Jewish immigrant from Russia.  She and her sister are working to bring the rest of their family to America to save them from the increasing pogroms.  However, Yetta is determined to be treated fairly and is one of the first girls on the picket line when the strike begins, suffering frequent beatings and imprisonment.

Jane is a budding socialite from a family climbing its way to the top of New York society.  She has been brought up to wear pretty dresses, attend teas and balls, marry a wealthy man who will fatten her father’s assets and/or esteem, and have absolutely nothing but fluff between her ears.  But when she meets Yetta and Jane on the picket line, she sees in them a freedom that she has never known and yet longs for.

Haddix really does a lovely job of intertwining the stories of these three girls as well as weaving in the facts of the strike and the fire that so quickly followed the end of the strike and resulted in the deaths of so many young girls.  The novel provides some fantastic historical elements that tend to get glossed over in most public school history courses, where there is a race to finish the course in time for state testing.  It is a great starting point for conversations about women’s and workers’ rights, the historical need for unions, the ethical obligations of business owners, and the discrepancy between the poor and the wealthy and how much money they each think is “enough.”


April 22, 2010   Posted in: fiction, historical fiction, Young Adult  No Comments

“Though she be but little, she is fierce.”

It should come at no surprise that I absolutely adored the novel The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet by Erin Dionne.  The main character’s parents are professors of Shakespeare and her little sister is a girl genius–a seven year old taking college courses, but who must attend public school for a year before she can officially be admitted.  She ends up being sent to school with Hamlet, who is in eighth grade.

Now, dear readers, if you remember anything about middle school, you will remember the quest to fit in.  The absolute worst thing at that age is to stand out, to be anything other than ordinary, unless it is in some “popular” way.  Hamlet is absolutely humiliated, not just by her too-smart-for-her-own-good sister, but also by her parents’ increased involvement at her school.

While some of the antics become a bit predictable, I think that may only be because I’m reading this as an adult, with all of those years of experience behind me.  The characters don’t surprise me because I’ve seen all that behavior before.  (Probably also don’t hurt that I teach middle school and see it on a daily basis.)  Though some of it does seem a bit over the top, it is rather humorous, and feels a bit cathartic when she finally begins to figure out how to navigate through the treacherous waters of eighth grade while also learning how to communicate her thought, feelings, and needs to her parents.

One of my few complaints is with the descriptions of the parents “Elizabethan” clothing.  This is kind of an unfair criticism, though, since I actually do historical costuming.  Let’s just say that the clothing the parents wear is in the vein of what I have seen patrons of a Ren Faire wearing, not the actual workers or reenactors.  I suppose only a scholar or costumer would be able to tell the difference though, so I’m sure middle school readers will not notice anything amiss.

The book would probably make a nice introduction to Shakespeare, especially A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which is heavily featured in the story.  It also deals with the issue of standing out in a positive way, living up to your responsibilities, learning to communicate with parents who just don’t seem to understand, and being a role model for younger siblings–and all this in a package that doesn’t feel didactic and even has its moments of humor.

March 25, 2010   Posted in: fiction  No Comments

Local CYRM Results Are In!

For any of my dear readers who are not from California or who are not involved in teaching, CYRM stands for the California Young Reader Medal.  It is an award that is given to recent books meant for school age children, from primary to young adult.  The books are group by age appropriateness/reading level.  Students who read all of the books in a particular category can vote for the one they think deserves the award.

Now, over the summer, I read all three books that were nominated in the young adult category.  If you have read my reviews, you are aware that a couple of them dealt with some pretty heavy topics, such as teen sex and drug use.  Our librarian, therefore, decided not to offer that category for our students, considering that our school includes sixth graders, many of whom are just not ready for books like that (actually, whose parents are not ready to deal with topics like that).

So, that meant that I hadn’t read any of the books my students would be reading, which was the whole point!  I then set to work on reading the three nominees at the middle school level.  Here are brief reviews of each, in the order in which I read them:

1. Blood on the River: Jamestown 1607–This was a fun book as far as the history goes.  I like that the author uses a young protagonist to tell the story through, not only keeping kids engaged in a story that is dominated by adults, but also giving young readers a child’s perspective of life in the “New World.”  I also liked that the author draws on contemporary research about the Jamestown settlement and on Captain John Smith and Pocahontas, rather than relying on Smith’s (and Hollywood’s for that matter) romanticized version of the events.

I can’t really put my finger on anything I didn’t like about the book, but I got a little bored with it.  It’s certainly filled with plenty of fighting, but that is interspersed with a lot of starving, working, and back biting between the colonists/fortune hunters.

2. The Wednesday Wars–The basic premise in this novel is that one day a week, the Protestant main character is stuck alone with his teacher for the last hour of class because all of his classmates are attending religion classes (the rest of those classmates being either Catholic or Jewish). He is convinced that his teacher hates him because she is stuck with him for that hour, but as the year goes on they manage to find some common ground.

This one was definitely my favorite, probably because it contains the type of humor that appeals to me and that I think kids get.  There were parts that made me laugh out loud:

But her (the teacher’s) nefarious ploot to bore me to death failed again, because The Tempest was even better than The Merchant of Venice.  In fact, it almost beat out Treasure Island–which is saying something.

It was surprising how much good stuff there was.  A storm, attempted murders, witches, wizards, invisible spirits, revolutions, characters drinking until they’re dead drunk, and angry monster named Caliban…I was amazed that Mrs. Baker was letting me read this.  It’s got to be censored all over the place.  I figured that sh hadn’t read it herself, otherwise she would never have let me at it

Caliban…he knew cuss words.  I mean, he really knew cuss words.  What Mr. Vendleri said while standing on Danny Hupfer’s desk didn’t come close.  Even Doug Swieteck’s brother couldn’t cuss like that–and he could cuss the yellow off a school bus.

Okay, maybe that humor is geared more towards an adult audience, but there are certainly some antics that I think kids can appreciate, including a scene where some rats escape from their cage.  Anyway, there are also passages that brought tears to my eyes, such as when the protagonist tries to hurry to the sporting goods store after performing as Ariel in The Tempest (wearing yellow tights with feathers on the butt) so that he can get Mickey Mantle’s signature.  He gets there just in time only to have his baseball icon blow him off and make fun of his costume.  In a very touching scene, his best friend hands Mantle back the ball he just got signed and says he doesn’t want it anymore.  After this scene, our protagonist reflects:

When gods die, they die hard.  It’s not like they fade away, or grow old, or fall asleep.  They die in fire and pain, and when they come out of you, they leave your guts burned.  It hurts more than anything you can talk about.  And maybe worst of all is, you’re not sure if there will ever be another god to fill their place.  Or if you’d ever want another god to fill their place.  You don’t want fire to go out inside you twice.

Okay, I’ve gone on about this one a little too long, but I really enjoyed reading it.  So many funny moments and some powerful writing.

3. Alabama Moon–This one just wasn’t my cup of tea at all.  The protagonist is a young boy who has grown up living out in the woods with his father.  His father was a Vietnam vet who came back feeling like the government was the worst evil in the world, so he took his wife and young son away from civilization to live off the land, instilling in the boy an absolute dread that one day the “law” would come after them.

His father ends up dying of an infection from a broken leg that he refuses to seek treatment for, leaving Moon all alone in the forest.  The rest of the book chronicles his attempts to escape from various law enforcement officials and institutions in order to get to Alaska, where his father said he’s be able to find more people “like them.”

He does manage to make some friends along the way and slowly begins to realize that maybe his dad didn’t really have the right idea after all.

My problems with the book start with my belief that young readers will have a difficult time relating to the main character.  That aside, I felt like the plot development was predictable, and all along, I suspected that the author had some ulterior motive, some message that he wanted to communicate about crazy people who live in the forest or government officials who want to lock kids up or some other such.  My suspisions were confirmed toward the end of the novel when a judge summarizes the problems with Moon’s situation:

You see, there’s this boy whose raised out in the woods and doesn’t know a thing about the world but what he’s seen within a couple of miles of his stick hut.  One day this kid pops out of the woods, ten years old, and starts walkin’ down the blacktop.  We automatically think we got to put him in the system.  Get him in the boys’ home.  Make him property of the state.  Well, everybody can’t fit that slot.  Why can’t you just put the kid on your sofa and help him out a little?  Hell, put him on your floor.  This kid would’ve been fine in somebody’s barn.  You’ll kill a boy like this in an institution.

Now, I don’t have any problem with a book having a message.  I just have a problem with the author thinks he needs to have one of his character’s make it obvious.  It shows a lack of faith in the reader’s competence, and closes the door to any other interpretations or messages his creative work could have offered to a diverse group of readers.

Other than that, I thought the book was at least interesting, well paced, and unique.

Of course, after writing all that, I am apparently a terrible predictor of what young readers enjoy. When the students voted today, they chose Alabama Moon. Of course, these are just our school site’s results. They get sent in to the CYRM organization, and we won’t receive the official results for another month or so.

I must brag that last year, even though my favorite book did not win our school site’s nomination, it did ultimately win the medal. I’m hoping for another come-from-behind win for my favorite.

March 24, 2010  Tags:   Posted in: fiction  One Comment

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

This is the second book I’ve read by Funke, and I must say this is the better of the two.  I find her unorthodox in her approach towards children’s fantasy in that very little of the story is based on anything fantastical.  Her characters are very much grounded in the real world and must deal with some sort of magical intrusion into their lives.  It’s an interesting premise, but not necessarily what I’m looking for or expecting as a reader of fantasy.

In this book Meggie discovers that her father has been keeping a rather interesting secret from her: he can read characters out of books.  The flip side of this secret is that every time he reads someone out of a book, someone from the real world disappears into the book, which is what happened to her mother when Meggie was just a little girl.

Now, the villain that Mo read out of the book all those years ago is after him and his copy of Inkheart to make sure that no one can ever read him back into his own story, as he happens to like our world quite a bit.  Meggie and her father then get caught up in trying to put an end to Capricorn’s reign of terror in a small village in rural Italy before he manages to get Mo to provide him with an even more sinister weapon than his band of henchmen.

This is a rather long novel, and while that seems to be the vogue in children’s fantasy right now, I’m not sure this novel is on the same level as Harry Potter or Twilight.  There are bits that seem to drag a bit, and I didn’t get to that can’t-put-it-down phase of reading until the last sixty pages or so.  That’s not a whole lot of edge of the seat excitement for a novel that tops five hundred pages.

Maybe I just have a bias towards fantasy novels that actually give me an entirely new world to explore, but I just find Meggie’s story a little sad.  Her story proves that when fantasy characters are found in real life, they are more the stuff of horror than enchantment.  In the end, it was just too much reality and not enough fantasy for me…too much dismay and not enough fun or excitement.

On the other hand, one of my sixth grade students just finished reading it before me and absolutely LOVED it, so maybe I just don’t know what I’m talking about.  I will also say in the book’s favor that overall it is an interesting read, with some good, thoughtful and thought-provoking writing, as long as you don’t have specific expectations when picking up a novel that is marketed as fantasy.

This book could generate some interesting family discussions about the nature of evil.  Can a real person be completely evil in the way that written characters are sometimes?  What do we do about people that don’t seem to have any redeeming qualities?  On a slightly more advanced level, I’d personally love to discuss the comments Funke inserts into the novel about the nature of fiction and the role(s) that stories play in society.  She has some interesting ideas:

“Perhaps there’s another, much larger story behind the printed one, a story that changes just as our own world does.  And the letters on the page tell us only as much as we’d see peering through a keyhole.  Perhaps the story in the book is just the lid on a pan: It always stays the same, but underneath there’s a whole world that goes on–developing and changing like our own world.”

January 22, 2010  Tags: ,   Posted in: fantasy, fiction  No Comments

Setting Goals for 2010

This is my kind of New Year’s resolution: every year I set a goal for how many books or pages (or both) I’d like to read in the upcoming year. Originally, I was inspired by the 50-book-challenge that was making the rounds on social networking websites (namely LJ, which I frequented at the time). I was pretty certain I’d never make it to 50, so I set myself the goal of reading 30 books that year.

For two consecutive years, I did not reach my goal. I wasn’t off by too much, but enough to somewhat disappoint myself. In 2009, I amazed myself. Not only did I get far beyond my 30 book goal, I went beyond the 50 book mark. Of course, I didn’t get much else done in 2009, other than keeping up at work and marginally taking care of my house and husband. I did a bit of knitting and crocheting, but my other hobbies took a back seat to reading for the most part.

Since I’d like to also focus on those other hobbies and some of the important people in my life in 2010, I think I may need to cut back on the reading just a bit. So, my new plan is to read my age…I’ll be 34 years old by the end of 2010, so that’s my goal–to read 34 books.

So, as I embark on this plan with Inkheart in my hand, I wish you all happy reading in the new year!

January 5, 2010   Posted in: Uncategorized  No Comments

Percy Jackson and the Olympians

This is a pretty fun series of books geared towards middle school students. They are actually really perfect for sixth graders, since (in California, at least) they are studying ancient cultures in history and mythology in English. So far, I’ve read the first two books in the series and am planning to make them available to my students for independent reading once we start our mythology unit.


The basic premise of these books is that the Greek gods and goddesses are actually real and have simply moved to America to follow the hub of Western Civilization. Of course, the hero of our story (both in a literal and literary sense) does not know all this at the beginning of the first book. All he knows is that trouble seems to follow him wherever he goes, and he’s been to a lot of places trying to get away from it: six different school in six years, in fact. It isn’t until his math teacher turns into a flying monster during a field trip, though, that Percy begins to realize that maybe the kind of trouble following him isn’t just because he is dyslexic, has ADHD, and tends to attract bullies. He soon discovers that his best friend is a satyr, his Latin teacher is a centaur, and that he himself is only half human.

While Percy struggles to come to terms with the fact that his father is one of the Olympian gods, he is thrown into the middle of a brewing war between Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Everything depends on Percy’s successful completion of his quest to find and return Zeus’s stolen thunderbolt.


In the second book, Camp Half-Blood (the summer camp where Percy trains to be a hero) is under attack and Percy’s friend Grover, the satyr, is being held captive by a cyclops. Percy must face a friend who has become an enemy and learn to work with an enemy who…well, hasn’t quite become a friend, but is at least an ally, for now, in order to save both Grover and the camp.

If you are knowledgeable in Greek mythology, you will recognize quite a few allusions to those stories, especially in the second book where references to The Odyssey abound. However, you don’t have to be up on all the gods and heroes to enjoy these books. Everything that is essential to understand is explained, since Percy himself is not familiar with many of the stories.

I also appreciate that Riordan throws in a bit of an environmental bent. He doesn’t make it overbearing, but there are references, where appropriate, that although Western civilization has its benefits, we have really polluted the natural environment to the point where many of the good creatures of mythology can no longer thrive, but the evil monsters do.

The other themes that I find incredibly valuable in this series are how to deal with bullies and how to overcome your own weaknesses. Percy constantly faces the teasing (both physical and verbal) of bullies, and while he doesn’t always deal with them in the best way, he also realizes that their differences can be overcome in times of need. He also must overcome personal obstacles, such as his dyslexia and ADHD. At Camp Half-Blood, he learns that his disabilities can sometimes be an advantage, such as the ADHD helping him in battle, keeping his senses alert and shifting as the battle shifts.


December 2, 2009  Tags:   Posted in: action, fantasy, fiction  No Comments

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

I love this book. It’s been several months since I read it, so I can no longer give you an in-depth description of what it’s about. In a nutshell, the story is told from the perspective of a young man who doesn’t really seem to fit in anywhere, and thus ends up being able to go everywhere. Although Arnold has grown up on a reservation, he was born with hydrocephalus and has always been treated as a bit of an outcast. Yet, he manages to see humor in the outrageous situations he is faced with.

The story not only deals with his experiences on the reservation, but also his experiences when he decides to attend high school in a town off the res and the resultant further alienation from friends and family back home.

The most memorable thing about this book is that it kept me laughing and, yet, also managed to make me cry. Alexie adeptly brings up Native American social and political issues, both past and present, without apology and without it feeling heavy handed. He even brings in issues of death and loss in a way that is poignant without being contrived, overly simplistic, or melodramatic, as is sometimes the case in literature that is geared towards young adults.

This was certainly my favorite for this year’s California Young Reader Medal, hands down. My one word of caution for adults introducing and discussing the book with their own young readers is that it does contain references to sex and masturbation, which is probably to be expected in a book written from a teenage boy’s perspective. Personally, I don’t feel that these references are distracting or inappropriate, and considering all the other issues for discussion that this book brings up, it is just one more conversation starter.

October 25, 2009  Tags:   Posted in: fiction, realistic, Young Adult  One Comment

Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr


This is book two for me out of the three YA novels nominated for a California Young Reader Medal this year. As I mentioned before, I’m trying to get a jump start on reading some of the nominees before the students start scrambling for the books.

I actually enjoyed this one more than St. Iggy, and they are actually rather easy to compare. Both deal with dysfunctional families and a young person trying to find his/her place in the world and his/her voice. Unlike Iggy’s parents who have abandoned him in favor of drugs and alcohol, Deanna’s parents have simply checked out emotionally. While part of the problem is that her father caught her with a high school boy when she was only thirteen, you get the sense that the problems started long before this, that she was with Tommy simply because she needed male attention and felt alone and neglected–a feeling many girls can probably relate to if they do not get positive love and attention from their fathers.

Like with last year’s CYRM nominees, I wonder whether young readers will really pick up on these nuances. Will young readers understand the very real problems that underlie the family dysfunction? Will they be able to grasp the transformation she goes through as she begins to forgive those who have hurt her? Will they be able to sympathize with her need to apologize for things people don’t know she has even done?

These are issues that we all struggle with even as adults. I’m just not sure that my middle school readers will really get it.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed the book. I did feel like there was a discrepancy between Deanna’s sometimes immaturity and occasional deep insights. One scene in particular stands out: when her friend Lee is asking for advice about whether or not to have sex with her boyfriend. I felt like what Deanna wanted to tell her friend was incredibly mature–insights into the emotional aspect of a sexual relationship that I think is a little unrealistic for a sixteen-year-old, no matter how experienced or inexperienced she may be. Yet, what she actually says to her friend ends up showing a lack of maturity that is at odds with what she thinks, though much more realistic given her age and situation.

Overall, I thing the book is well done. There are lots of issues to bring up with a young reader, including why young girls might choose to have sex in the first place. Other issues to be aware of include underage drinking, drug use, and bullying.

July 31, 2009  Tags: , , , , ,   Posted in: fiction, Young Adult  No Comments