Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
So how to explain Leviathan? It is set during 1914 in an alternate world in which Charles Darwin discovered biotechnology. So the British Empire was built on the backs of strange, fabricated beasties while the Germans and the Austro-Hungarian Empire bulked at such blasphemy and relied on machines instead, earning them the title of Clankers.
Reading it on the heels of Howl’s Moving Castle, I couldn’t help but imagine the book coming to life in the hands of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. The was an element of mecha anime – the “clanker” machines used by that walk around like AT Imperial Walkers (think of Howl’s Castle). Then imagining the blend of machine and animal employed by the British; what the creators of Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke could do with that!
It is the first in a series of three books (published October 2009, 2010, and 2011) and one full-color guidebook, The Manual of Aeronautics. It includes illustrations by Keith Thompson “because back in 1914, almost all books were illustrated, and I wanted it to look and feel like a book from that period. Plus, there are so many weird animals and machines in the world of Leviathan that I wanted to show them” (Scott Westerfeld).
According to the Akron-Summit County Public Library, “Steampunk is a genre with a huge underground following… but it has yet to become mainstream. Scott Westerfeld may help to change that. His newest title, Leviathan, takes history, fantasy, adventure, animals, Star Wars and the women’s movement, tosses them in a pot, swirls them around, and creates an absolutely delicious feast of a story.”
Read the great review at A Chair, A Teacozy and a Fireplace that made me pick this one up.
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Sophie, the eldest of three girls, believes herself destined to fail in the fairy tale world she lives in, for isn’t that always the way in fairy tale stories. When Sophie insults the Witch of the Waste, she is turned into an old woman and cursed. So she sets out from home (a Hat Shop) to make her fortune and lands in Howl’s moving castle. The Wizard Howl has the reputation as the eater of young woman’s souls, thanks to Howl’s apprentice Michael. Sophie is soon at home with Michael, Calcifer the fire demon whom powers the magical castle, and Howl whom has created many different names and reputations in order to avoid the Witch of the Waste.
So goes this intricate, humorous and puzzling tale of fantasy and adventure which should both challenge and involve readers. Jones has created an engaging set of characters and found a new use for many of the appurtenances of fairy tales: seven league boots and invisible cloaks, among others. Sara Miller, “School Library Journal”
I was afraid I wouldn’t enjoy Diana Wynne Jones but I was wrong. I adore this book. It poked fun, had an intricate plot line with a most satisfying ending, and great writing. I fell in love with Howl right along with Sophie.
I am going to pop Miyazaki’s anime adaptation into my DVD player and make sense of the film! This is a great fantasy read for 7th graders and up.
SLOB by Ellen Potter
SLOB is the story of twelve-year-old Owen Birnbaum, the fattest kid in school. The reasons behind Owen’s eating disorder are revealed as Owen: attempts to build Nemesis (a device that will capture the events of the past), suffers through humiliation after humiliation at the hands of a cruel gym teacher, and as Owen tracks down a thief who takes his lunch time Oreo snack.
The prose often struck me as insightful. This passage, on page 29, jolted me:
Everyone thinks they know the fat kid. We’re so obvious. Our embarrassing secret is out there for everyone to see, spilling over our belts, flapping under our chins, stretching the seams of our jeans.
That doesn’t mean we don’t have other secrets that you can’t see.
I also enjoyed the occasional clever metaphor: “She may not be supersmart, but if you stick her in a crowd of people, she just pops, like a zebra-stripped jeep in a shopping mall parking lot” (p 80).
The ending kept me guessing. It’s not often you read about a boy with an eating disorder but this is an exception read. I’m sure it will be in the run for a Printz (though I’m pulling for The Devil’s Paintbox). I believe it also qualifies for the Newbery.
The Ranger’s Apprentice Series by John Flanagan
This is a great series for middle grade readers. Clean content. It will appeal to boys but includes female roles, one especially strong female. The dialog is humorous and the characters well-developed if not a little stereotypical. Tamora Pierce’s Protector of the Small series comes to mind as a strong pairing. Kids who have enjoyed the Pendragon series or The Books of Umber as well.
With a story line that keeps things moving, kids will be eager to read on. I have finished the first four volumes and checked out the website. Lots of fans already and maybe a movie from United Artists (funding, of course, is the road block).
The Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd
I picked this one up after reading Book Envy’s review. Her summary is spot on and I agree with her assessment so check that out, then continue.
There was a lot of good description:
Let it all out. If only I could. Letting it all out would involve me exploding like a firework, a beautiful riot of rainbow sparks bouncing around the car and lighting up the entire lot. Everyone would look over to see what was going on, and one by one they would understand everything I had inside me (p 132).
But it was occasionally over-written. I often believe YA novels could be better if they were shortened by half.
In addition to BookEnvy’s comments, I found Dade’s relationship with Pablo fascinating. A few years ago, a former high school classmate of mine whom had since come out, said, “I hooked up with a lot of guys from school. In the baseball dugout. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you their names.”
I don’t know if I was satisfied with the ending. Without giving anything away, I would’ve liked to know what could have happened if things ended differently for Pablo.
Those who enjoy Alex Sanchez’s novels will like The Vast Fields of Ordinary. [On a side note, I am totally uninformed when it comes to MySpace music and the newfangled stuff kids are listening to these days to define themselves.]
The Girl Who Threw Butterflies by Mick Cochrane
In the 1960s a guy named J.C. Martin made a living catching the great Hoyt Wilhelm’s knuckleball. Doug Mirabelli always caught Tim Wakefield and his knuckleball for the Red Sox. They were called “personal catchers.” Catching a knuckleball was so difficult and so unpleasant for most regular catchers that if you could do it reasonably well (nobody did it really well), that one skill could keep you on the team. The personal catcher would sit on the bench until the knuckleballer took the mound, and then he and his special floppy mitt would enter the game. It was an odd kind of intimacy, to be joined together like that, a weird baseball marriage (p 74-75).
How can I express how much I enjoyed this book? It blended many of the themes present in several of this year’s best children’s books (see OCL’s Mock Newbery List): death and abandonment, grief and alienation, discrimination and friendship. Yet none of these drowned the story and baseball tied it all together.
[SPOILER ALERT]
Baseball is what helps Molly hold herself together. It helps her come to terms with her father’s death and to discover herself. It is how she codified life:
Molly meanwhile was fantasizing about a scoring system not for baseball but for life. If she said something stupid, if she forgot to bring home her science book – those would be errors. If her mother came through for her and a third of the time – that sounded about right – her batting average would be .333. Back when her locked has been defaces and Lonnie came along and rescued her, he could have been credited with a save” (p 147).
The setting – Buffalo, NY – was a perfect choice. Like Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, whose wintry and bleak Syracuse, NY setting gave the perfect backdrop to Melinda’s troubles, the gloomy Buffalo is “like Siberia, a place you’d go to disappear, or to be punished” (p 115) to this story. It supports Molly’s suspicions that her father’s job was “taking the starch out of him” (p 37) and that her mother was like a flower withering in such grey desolation.
My father, like Molly’s, was a reporter for the local newspaper, covering equally mundane and repetitious stories. While scavenging to salvage some of her father’s memorabilia, Molly stumbles across one of her father’s notepads. At first hopefully it will contain some sort of explanation for his mysterious death, she finds it blank and instead stages a mock interview with her father (p 55). I thought this and all the other little steps Molly took toward forgiving her father was exceptionally well done.
[END SPOILERS]
If you enjoyed this book, I recommend No Cream Puffs by Karen Day and Playing the Field by Phil Bildner.
Soulstice: The Devouring (Book 2)
This follow up to The Devouring did not disappoint. I’m only surprised that more teens at my library aren’t checking it out. I just love the cover art!
Reggie is an anomaly. With her ability to enter fearscapes and free tortured souls from Vours, she becomes a target of both the Vours and the Hunters (of which Eden is a member). It ends on a chilling note and I’m very interested to see where Holt takes the series.
I found that I didn’t recall some of the details from book one (it’s been over a year) but I found that it didn’t really matter. I got the gist and this book is about the fear, the terror. I like that Holt brought the story into the realm of science. It made it more believable.
Fairy Tale by Cyn Balog
Rarely do I come across a book so poorly written and so bland that I cannot finish it. Fairy Tale is the first one this year!
The main characters are so inadequately developed that by page 80, I could care less whether they remained together.
The plot was trite and predictable. The narration was superfluous. A certifiable dud.
L.A. Candy: A Novel by Lauren Conrad
A story of two friends: Jane, the sweet blond, and Scarlett, gorgeous, smart and sexy with a distrusting nature.
I had no idea who Lauren Conrad was when I picked up this book. It was on the best seller list and plastered all over the chain bookstores so I put it on hold at the Library. As I read, I was questioned by a gawking teenager in disbelief, “You’re reading that book?” When she filled me in (Conrad was a ‘reality’ TV star, The Hills, etc.), I suddenly understood how such a poorly written, barely interesting book could have been published.
When our two beauties are tapped to star in a ‘reality’ TV show (a la Sex in the City in LA and for teens), their friendship and their lives change forever. IN the passage below, Scarlett has just escaped from the cameras:
“She had also started going to the gym every day – it was a good way of releasing her pent up whatever – and re-reading all of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novels, in the original Spanish. Just for fun” (p 253).
Now, Scarlett is supposed to be oh-so-brillant, which to Conrad equates to speaking multiple languages but being unable to define feelings. A vague ‘whatever’ apparently suffices.
Every dim-wit thought that crossed our heroine’s minds was laid bare. Nothing was left to the imagination.
To those untouched by the Hollywood machine, some of the details about that world were interesting but this isn’t a book I’d recommend.
Anything but Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin
Jason Blake is anything but typical. Mocked as retarded by his second grade classmates, diagnosed with ASD, Autistic Spectrum Disorder, by doctors in the third grade, and defined by his mother as NLD, nonverbal learning disordered, Jason is just Jason.
It surprised me that this book was just as much an exploration of the writing process (very post-modern) as it was a story about an autistic child who makes a friend online.
While reading, I found myself often wondering why Baskin didn’t apply the lessons her characters were learning to her own writing. More show, less tell (p 44). While School Library Journal called Jason “believable and empathetic,” I thought our narrator was rather dry and over explanatory, though his situation is pitiable and realistic. I couldn’t connect with Jason, while Stork’s Marcello is still milling about in my head.
School Library Journal also praised, “Baskin also does a superb job of developing his parents and younger brother as real people with real problems, bravely traversing their lives with a differently abled child without a road map, but with a great deal of love.” I can agree to this wholeheartedly.
It is clear that Jason’s mother has trouble understanding him as illustrated on page 68:
“Remember, Jason?” she is saying. “Remember those leggings?”
We were both remembering the same thing.
“Those leggings?” I repeat what she has said, so that she will know this.
“No?” my mother is saying. “You don’t? It’s okay. It was a long time ago.
And yet, his father gets him.
“It’s not meaningless to Jason,” my dad said. … “The words. And the letters. Just because you don’t understand their meaning doesn’t mean the don’t have one” (p 47).
This one has also been mentioned on mock Printz lists but it doesn’t top the likes of The Devil’s Paintbox or Along for the Ride in terms of writing excellence.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing (March 24, 2009)
