Book Review Roundup #7
September 13, 2024
The Found Boys by S. D. Smith
The Found Boys by S. D. Smith is an exciting and interesting story about ordinary boys growing up in two churches on either side of the river in 1980s West Virginia. Scott and Tommy are white boys from Valley Baptist Church who like to jump off of swings, shoot hoops, run along the shoreline, and chase after adventure. Dooley is a black kid from Mt. Zion Baptist church who likes to do pretty much the same things. When the boys agree not to fight over their differences but instead join together on a mission to steal something from the junkyard, they get a lot more than they bargained for.
Shipwrecked: The True Adventures of a Japanese Boy by Rhoda Blumberg
What a coincidence that Shipwrecked was donated to my library just as Sara and I were putting the finishing touches on our Kensuke’s Kingdom book club packet, for which we are using this same cover!
In the Author’s Note for Shipwrecked, Blumberg says she became fascinated with Manjiro while doing research for her book about Commodore Perry.
Manjiro’s life was full of exciting twists and turns. It is truly incredible that a lowly son of a fisherman rose to the level of samurai, and his life is an example of industry, diligence and perseverance earning him respect everywhere he went.
Farmer Duck by Martin Waddell
Some people take their picture books way too seriously. I thought this story of a lazy farmer and his rebellious animals was a great read. A bare-chested farmer sits in bed and eats chocolates while the duck does all the farm work. The only dialog in the book is the farmer asking the duck, “How goes the work?” The duck replies, “Quack.” Finally, the duck is so exhausted and discouraged that the other farm animals take pity on him and come up with a plan to relieve his misery by taking over the farm.
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
The 1997 runner-up for the Newbery Award was an unusual and subtly complex novel about political intrigue, geopolitics, mythology, and human endeavor. Commended by the American Library Association for its “subtly placed clues and artful misdirection,” it culminates in “a stunningly clever climactic twist.” The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner is interesting and well-told. And, one that I have returned to many times in the last half dozen years.
In a region of the world that feels very much like the Mediterranean, three small (fictional) countries exist in a precarious state of co-dependence. Sounis has a childless king, Eddis has a kind and unmarried young queen, and the country of Attolia has a cold, young, and beautiful queen. No one wants to marry Attolia, and Attolia has her own agenda to attend to. Sounis wants to marry Eddis to gobble her small lands and her valuable mountain passes. Eddis has no interest in marrying the scoundrel Sounis. Each is locked in a stalemate, and so Sounis seeks to find another way to claim the throne of Eddis.
Jupiter Rising by Gary D. Schmidt
I pre-ordered Jupiter Rising for my kindle. I don’t often do that, because I seldom read new books. But this is Gary D. Schmidt, one of our beloved authors.
It’s a short book. I read it in about two and a half hours. It was over so quickly, I had to think for a bit how I felt about it.
The book continues the story of the surviving characters of Orbiting Jupiter. After some thought about Jupiter Rising, my conclusion is that this book isn’t necessary. I’m no better or worse for having read it. I’m not happier for Jupiter or Jack than I was at the end of the first book.
Ratty by Suzanne Selfors
Ratty Barclay isn’t supposed to be a four foot tall rodent. He was born a boy, but something, maybe the Barclay Curse, turned him into a rat soon after his birth. And now Ratty wants to come out of hiding and somehow break the curse. He’s in hiding because people generally hate rats, especially human-sized talking rats. And his uncle Max has protected Ratty from the world of rat-hating humans for almost thirteen years, but Ratty thinks he can break the curse if he can return to Fairweather Island and the Barclay family estate where it all began.
Middle Grade Fiction published in 2024.
The Mouse Adventures series by Torben Kuhlmann
The Mouse Adventures series includes four stories of daring and creative mice who are as fascinated by science and technology as we are. In each book, the main mouse considers an engineering and invention question at more or less the same time as the famous human counterpart. In each book, it is the mouse who solves the problem first, and who then leaves clues behind for the famous scientist. Whether it is the mouse who leaves scraps of paper behind for the “floppy hats” at NASA to find as he blasts off to the moon, or the mouse who leaves a riddle each night for Einstein to solve, helping him work out his theories on relativity, the mouse is always just one step ahead of the human in the most charming ways.
Down Cut Shin Creek by Kathi Appelt
What if you had never learned to read? Can you imagine going to a school where there were no books? What if the only books you had access to were those that libraries didn’t want anymore that, once discarded, had passed through the hands of hundreds more people and come to your house on the back of a horse in a burlap bag?
The text of Down Cut Shin Creek is informative and descriptive, but it is the photos that truly tell the story. We see the people the librarians were serving: a little girl with one bobby pin holding her hair back from her face and rough hand stitching holding her rougher clothing together; a man sick in bed, his walls covered with newspaper for an extra bit of insulation; four children in a similar room lying in bed together in order to stay warm; a one-room schoolhouse with chairs but no desks; a woman wearing all her winter garb inside her cabin taking a book from a librarian through the glassless window.
The Hidden Treasure of Glaston by Eleanore M. Jewett
In twelfth century England the feud between Archbishop Thomas Becket and King Henry has ended in the murder of Becket, forcing the boy Hugh’s noble father, an ally of the king, into exile in France. Young Hugh, crippled by a childhood disease, is left behind in the care of the Abbot of Glastonbury. Glaston soon becomes Hugh’s sanctuary and his beloved home as he finds both mentors and friends as well as a quest to find remnants and reminders of King Arthur’s and perhaps even Joseph of Arimathea’s presence, centuries prior, in that part of the country.
I read this Newbery Honor book as a part of the 1964 Project. A reprint edition of The Hidden Treasure of Glaston is available from Bethlehem Books.
Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis
A number of years ago, some of my most well-read book club teens recommended that I read To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. They were convinced I would love the humor, the nonsense, and the brilliance of that hilarious story about time travel. They were right. It is a little P. G. Wodehouse, a lot The Importance of Being Earnest, and a bit of Agatha Christie with a dash of time travel thrown in. To Say Nothing of the Dog is a perfectly wonderful little romp through the Victorian English countryside. When I got done reading it, they said, “Did you know it is part of a set of ‘Oxford Time Travel’ books?” I did not. But my interest was piqued.
It is safe to say that this two-part story is on my top twenty if not top ten list. It is so good, in fact, that I read the 1,400-page story last summer and then again this winter. I missed my friends in WWII England, and I needed to visit them again. I am sure I will revisit once more before the year is out. This story really was that wonderful for me.
Down Down the Mountain by Ellis Cradle
This is a lovely story of a simpler life where children are able to rejoice in owning shoes.
A way of life foreign to most of us springs out of the drawings. It seems that all the farm work must be done while straining uphill. Many of the illustrations are history lessons in themselves. One shows kettles of cooking food hanging over the fire in the stone fireplace, which is all there is of a kitchen in the family’s log cabin. We see Mammy washing clothes in buckets by the creek. The children meet a woman who is making soap in a kettle over an open fire. A train runs past the town, but horses and wagons are the only transportation for the people in the town.
Eyes and No Eyes: By Pond and River by Arabella Buckley
Oh, what a treat this book is! Bravo to Living Book Press for not only reprinting the “Eyes and No Eyes” series by Arabella Buckley, but also for updating it with gorgeous full-color photos that cannot fail to aid the reader in nature study, and invite us into the magical natural world around us.
This book was such a joy to read! In the preface, Arabella Buckley (Mrs. Fisher) explains that she has written these chapters in simple (yet very living) language designed for even the youngest children to understand and be enchanted by. This book is designed to encourage nature study out of doors, so the lessons are written to give children enough information to make them curious. But included in that are also practical instructions on how to interact with the natural world while they are out there.
Maybelle the Cable Car by Virginia Lee Burton
Added to the NEW Picture Book Preschool
Virginia Lee Burton wrote and illustrated the classics Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel and The Little House and Katy and the Big Snow. Maybelle the Cable Car ranks right up there with Ms. Burton’s other lovely books. Set in San Francisco, this picture book tells the story of how Maybelle and the other cable cars work hard going up and down the many hills of the city. In their big green barn at night, Maybelle and the other cable car reminisce about the good old days in San Francisco when the city was smaller and slower and every one knew everyone else and everyone appreciated the cable cars. Now the cable cars, who work for the city government, are neglected, and Big Bill the Bus says they are “too old and out of date, much too slow and can’t be safe.”
House of Sixty Fathers by Meindert DeJong
As the setting is developed in the first couple of paragraphs, it might be any typical peaceful opening scene; just a boy sheltering from the rain on a boat with his pets. Except that the rain dripping on the boy’s sleeping pig is coming through a bullet hole in the roof.
During China’s war with Japan concurrent with WWII, Tien Pao, a young Chinese boy, has fled with his family from the invading Japanese. They escape from their burning village on a sampan on the river– Tien Pao, his father and mother, his baby sister, the family pig, a dishpan with three ducklings in it, and a rice mill. For many days and nights, the family rowed the boat against the river’s current until they were safe from the Japanese. But now they are in a strange city with no money or food.
Jane and the Year Without a Summer by Stephanie Barron
I was looking for new mystery detective fiction, having read all of the Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Dorothy Sayers, and Erle Stanley Gardner that I could find, as well as many more in the genre. A friend suggested the Jane Austen Mysteries by Stephanie Barron. I looked for the first book in the series, Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, but my library didn’t have it on the shelf. So I just picked one that sounded interesting and thus read Jane and the Year Without a Summer, set in the summer of 1816 when “the eruption of Mount Tambora in the South Pacific caused a volcanic winter that shrouded the entire planet for sixteen months.” (Climate change, indeed!)
Jade by Sally Watson
In Lark, Sally Watson took readers down a most interesting path and gave us a delightfully fun adventure. There are some aspects of the story that parents may wish to be aware of, which I note in my review, but overall, it was an entertaining escapade well-suited to teen readers. As much as I wanted to follow the family tree, I decided to read Jade next because it was also available at Audible.
I did enjoy it. I will have it in my library. But, I will be cautious about to whom I recommend it. It is about a strong female protagonist from Colonial Virginia whose family is in the slave trade. Through a series of events, Melanie (nicknamed Jade) finds herself on a ship in the Bahamas attacked by pirates, and she joins their forces. She becomes a notorious outlaw, and this story is a rollicking fun ride. As much fun as this novel is, I found a number of challenges that mar the overall story for me, and I think parents may wish to know about some hefty content.
Mossy by Jan Brett
Also added to the NEW Picture Book Preschool.
Author illustrator Jan Brett was inspired by a turtle with a garden on its back to write Mossy, the story of an eastern box turtle who also grows a garden on her carapace (shell). In the story Mossy the turtle becomes the showpiece of Dr. Carolina’s natural history museum, but Dr. Carolina’s niece, Tory, isn’t so sure that Mossy is happy in her museum habitat. Romance enters the picture when Mossy meets Scoot, a handsome male turtle with ruby-red eyes. But will Mossy be able to get back to Lilypad Pond where Scoot is pining for her?
Magic in the Margins by W. Nikola-Lisa
Magic In the Margins is the sixth book in our Medieval Manuscripts Children’s Book Resources list.
The author information on the dust jacket says, “Mr. Nikola-Lisa’s interest in medieval bookmaking began many years ago as a second grade teacher, when he ended each year with a unit on the Middle Ages.”
In his preface, Nikola-Lisa says his inspiration for this book came from an illustration in another book; Bibles and Bestiaries: A Guide to Illuminated Manuscripts, by Elizabeth B Wilson. The illustration shows a scribe watching a mouse stealing his cheese, but also includes a picture of the scribe’s young apprentice. Nikola-Lisa began to wonder about the apprentice’s life.“Like many stories, this one welled up from the questions I posed.”