Falling Over Sideways

This book is very middle school but also appropriately done.  

Claire has started her eighth grade year on the wrong foot:  she had a zit the first day of school, she shares all her classes with Ryder—who always has a snide comment for her—and her dance friends were moved up to the high school class without her.  No one understands Claire’s troubles—not her parents, her friends, or her perfect older brother Matthew.  Then the bombshell hits:  Claire’s dad has a stroke.  Now the once great children’s author can’t coherently put two words together. Claire’s feelings of anger and sadness roll together and make one big emotional mess of Claire’s life.

This book has a few good lessons to take away.  First, friendship.  Claire is having trouble relating to her dance friends now because they’re in the high school class and will want to hang out with their new high school friends instead of her.  Because of her fears, she doesn’t share her problems with them, including her dad’s stroke, and when they find out, they’re hurt that she’s been holding back and not trusting them.  Claire also finds some unexpected friends at school.  At the beginning of the year, Claire was upset because she only had one friend in her class and her nemesis Ryder was also in her class, but as the year goes on, she finds that his teasing is more friendly than debasing.  They also stand up for Claire against their crazy science teacher, which solidifies their friendship.  Another lesson is perseverance.  The one place that always calmed Claire was dancing, but this year was different because her friends were not in her class.  She thought about giving up, but she decided to push through.  She took extra lessons with the teacher, she worked out at home, and pushed through to prove her teachers wrong.  She also motivated her dad to work out more to build his strength, even if he would rather sleep.

This book has its moments of drama and inner turmoil.  It is a little much from an adult’s perspective, but I see many kids relating to Claire’s story.

Serafina Books 2 & 3: The Twisted Staff & The Splintered Heart

After getting to visit Biltmore in the spring and listen to author Robert Beatty speak about his Serafina books, I was intrigued.  I quickly read the first book in the series, Serafina and the Black Cloak.  I stalled between the second and the third book just because I had so many other great books to read.

In Serafina and the Twisted Staff, the story picks up right after the first book.  Serafina is accepted into Braedon’s world of the Biltmore House, but things are still uneasy for her.  She feels a malevolent presence called “the old man of the mountain” that is threatening Biltmore House, and an English girl has arrived as a visitor and is befriending Braedon.  Serafina doesn’t trust Lady Rowenda and her pompous attitude, but she must trust her to help when animals start to go missing, including Braedon and Mr. Vanderbilt’s dogs.  Along with all Serafina’s new changes in station, she is also learning more about her past from her catamount mother and her Cherokee friend Waysa.  With their help, Serafina may finally be able to connect with her catamount past.

The third book, Serafina and the Splitered Heart, picks up a few months after the second book (so total, the whole series only spans about six months).  Serafina wakes up in a coffin, buried in the forrest.  She vaguely remembers getting attacked at Biltmore house by a black cloud of pain but nothing more.  When she awakes, she realizes that months have past, and Biltmore is still under attack by “the old man in the mountain,” who has been biding his time to take back his mountains from the Vanderbilts.  Serafina, with the help of some unlikely accomplices, must take him out once and for all, but it could be the most dangerous adventure for her yet.

This series is a solid 3 out of 5.  Once you get into the stories, you will persevere until the end, but the writing style is very descriptive.  There’s little dialogue and lots of extraneous details used to show the Blue Ridge Mountains are the setting of the book.  You’ll get to hear about different mountain animals and legends, but they also tend to bog down the plot of the story and stall the action.  If your upper elementary schooler or middle schooler loves a magical mystery, this book could be the next book for them.

The Upside of Unrequited

This was one of my “whim” picks when spending some Barnes & Noble money.  I’ve read Becky Albertalli’s other novels (this one is a companion book to Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and Leah on the Off Beat), and since she’s coming to Read Up Greenville in October, I thought I’d give this one a try.

The story is told from Molly’s perspective.  Her and her twin Cassie are cousins with Abby, the friend of Simon who moved to the suburbs of Atlanta after her parents divorced.  Molly and Cassie live in the DC area with their two moms and little brother.  Growing up they’ve been inseparable, but now they’re seventeen, things are changing.  Cassie has fallen hard for Mia, the first serious relationship she’s ever had, and Molly feels like she’s being pulled behind in her sister’s wake.  Cassie’s trying to push Molly together with Will, Mia’s friend, but Molly also has some mixed feelings towards Reid, her quirky coworker.  Molly's typical move is to have a crush but never move forward with any type of relationship for fear of rejection.  Ultimately, Molly realizes that it’s hard to put yourself out there emotionally and grow up.

I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t loving this book at the beginning.  I felt like it was difficult to understand the characters and their situation.  I guess coming off Simon’s story, which seemed so natural and organic, this one seemed more forced.  I thought that Molly’s sister’s attitude was a little grating, but maybe that’s because I found myself relating much more to Molly.  She’s introverted, doesn’t like putting her feelings out there, and feels insecure because of her body size.  She just seems like someone I would have befriended in high school because those were my biggest insecurities as well.  It was an okay read but not up to par with the rest of the companion books.

The Castle in the Attic

Part of my library’s summer reading challenge was to read a book published the year you were born.  Since I didn’t think If You Give a Mouse a Cookie would count, I chose a favorite from my childhood, The Castle in the Attic.

William, a ten-year-old gymnast, has to say goodbye to his long-time nanny, Mrs. Phillips.  She decided to move back to England, but before she leaves, she gives William a large model castle that has been in her family for years.  With the castle comes the one knight, the silver knight Sir Simon.  Dreading Mrs. Phillips impending departure, William pulls out the knight…and finds out he’s alive, albeit only two inches tall.  After realizing Sir Simon has the magical ability to turn living things small, William hatches a plan to shrink Mrs. Phillips and keep her in the castle, but obviously, things backfire.  To save Mrs. Phillips and find a way to make her big again, William must be magicked small himself and go with Sir Simon to defeat an evil wizard who’s taken Sir Simon’s kingdom.  William is scared, but he must learn to face his fears to save the ones he loves.

When reading this as a child, I loved the magical aspect to it, but reading it as an adult, I guess the story didn’t sparkle as much.  William, the main character, seemed overly emotional, and I don’t really see many children, especially boys, connecting with this story.  I don’t know if the story is just dated or just the way it was written, but there is very little to infer.  All the morals, words of wisdom, and character emotions are told to us explicitly, which makes the story seem very stilted.

I still enjoyed the story for the memories that it held for me, but it may be a little too bland for today’s elementary schooler.

You Belong to Me: A Mary Higgins Clark Mystery

I grew up on mysteries…the Boxcar Children and Nancy Drew stories.  So it’s not a surprise that I still love a good mystery (as long as it’s slightly more complex than Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny’s tales).  You Belong to Me by Marry Higgins Clark did not disappoint!

Susan Chandler is a lawyer turned psychologist who has a popular radio show.  While hosting, she interviewed Dr. Donald Richards, another psychologist who wrote a book called Vanishing Women.  It focused on missing person cases where women vanished into thin air and were never found and how women can protect themselves against this.  Susan brings up a case not listed in the book but one that’s of interest to her:  Regina Clausen, a news anchor who disappeared two years ago while on a cruise.  After mentioning the disappearance, odd things start happening.  A woman calls in to the radio show saying she was also approached by a man on a cruise with a ring identical to the one found in Regina’s stateroom after her death…then the mysterious woman disappears.  Another woman calls into the show saying her ex-boyfriend bought a similar ring at a tourist show in Greenwich Village…then she’s murdered.  Only Susan sees the connection between these women:  the small turquoise ring with the inscription “You belong to me”.  But with each new discovery, she’s putting herself in danger, and she doesn’t know who she can trust.

This book has really short chapters, which is a plus when you’re reading in short spurts between kid’s TV shows and water table playing, but it can sometimes get confusing who is narrating the story.  It’s written in third person, but each chapter directs us to a different character’s situation.  By the end of the book, we have over 20 narrators to keep track of!  Sometimes I would get confused who was who and would have to go back to a previous chapter to clarify.

Another interesting aspect is the killer’s pattern, killing women based on the song lyrics from “You Belong to Me,” hence the inscribed rings.  It was a nice connecting thread, much like how Agatha Christie’s book And Then There Were None killed people off by a nursery rhyme.  When the song was brought up in the story, the characters only remembered snippets of it but never tried to Google it…then I remembered I’m a millennial who pretty much grew up with Internet access and this book is from 1998.  Duh.

Overall, it was a well laid out mystery—I’ll admit, I totally fell for the red herrings—if you can keep track of who’s who.

Projekt 1065

Wow!  Alan Gratz is really on a roll!  His books, usually focusing around WWII but some expanding into other famous world conflicts, are a gripping and totally immersive experience.  His 2015 novel Code of Honor was the winner of the SC Junior Book Award for 2017-2018, so this 2016 book had to be taken off this year’s list (you cannot win the award two years in a row, so I’ve been told).

Projekt 1065 revolves around Michael O’Shaunessey, the son of the Irish ambassador to Germany during WWII.  Ireland is welcome in Germany because of it’s neutrality, but that doesn’t mean Michael’s parents are idle while in the Fatherland.  They are secretly spies sending back coded messages to London.  Michael also has a facade to maintain.  Like all German boys, he’s active in the Hitler Youth, which means book burnings, beating up dissidents, and manning the anti-aircraft guns during air raids.  But when his friend Fritz shows him plans for a new German plane design, Projekt 1065, he knows he needs to get the information to London.  Through the power of his nearly photographic memory and Simon, a downed English airman who his family is hiding in the embassy, he decides that he must be brave and take a chance to do the right thing.

This story is powerful to me because it shows the influence of nationalism during the Nazi regime.  It shows how you can get pulled into a movement that is so strong it can sweep you into it’s undertow.  Even through Michael does not believe in the Nazi party, he still has to maintain that he does to stay in his position to get information.  This means making tough decisions and finding out moral lines can get blurred easily.  Also, it highlights what happens when you are inactive against a strong force.  There were people in Germany who opposed the Nazis, but they were afraid to speak up or act out of line.  These people were targeted and beaten down, but one has to think what would have happened if more people had stood up to Hitler earlier.

A quote I found moving from the story was, “They were afraid that if they said something, did something, they might get shot.  Or worse.  So instead of anybody doing anything to help anybody else, they kept their eyes on their feet and pretended the sky wasn’t falling down on their heads.  How could none of them do anything?  How could I not?”

The one thing about the novel I would change is the ending.  It’s rather abrupt (in my opinion), and I felt like it needed a little more historical context to end it, like an epilogue or something.  For this day and age with the controversies going on around us, this book is a timely reminder to speak up against injustices so we don’t repeat the past.

Eligible: A Pride & Prejudice retelling

Because of a slow weekend and a bout of insomnia, I flew through this modern day retelling of Pride and Prejudice.  

The novel has kept the same essence of the original and it’s main conflict, but the story is tweaked for present day problems.  For example, Mrs. Bennett is still trying to marry off her five daughters, especially Jane and Liz who are approaching forty.  The characters’ personalities stay fairly intact:  Lydia is still a highly emotional flirt, Kitty still rides her sister’s coattails, Mary is serious and studious, Liz is outspoken and witty, and Jane is demure and reserved.  However, some situations are updated, like the family’s savings being depleted by Mr. Bennett’s heart attack and surgery coupled with Mrs. Bennett’s online shopping addiction.  Fitzwilliam Darcy is a prestigious brain surgeon which adds to his aloof attitude.  Bingley is also a doctor but is famous for his appearance on a Bachelor-type dating show where he was “trying to find love.”  The main story revolves around Jane and Bingley’s relationship but also follows Liz’s love confusion while also trying to detangle her family’s financial problems.

This story has a lot of culturally debated topics in it, from racist comments from Liz’s parents to transgender people to to premarital sex to the obsessive nature of cross-fit and paleo diets.  If you are against a little shock factor (or if you don’t want to hear Lydia and Kitty yell out inappropriately sexual Charades guesses), then you may want to skip this one because it does get a little crass.  I found it fascinating because I love, love, love Pride and Prejudice (as I state in my blog HERE) and because it’s written in the same style as the original story.  The sentences are sometimes long winded, but the chapters are really short and easier to digest than the original story.

This book says it’s the fourth in a series, but don’t be fooled.  The series is other Jane Austen books retold with modern twists, so you do not have to read them in order.

Restart

This book by Gordon Korman is one of those I recommend all middle schoolers to read.  It’s heartfelt and really is a project in empathy towards others.

Chase Ambrose is about to start his 8th grade year at Hiawassee Middle School.  He’s the big man on campus:  football star, lacrosse phenom, and a total bully.  He and his two best friends have been terrorizing the school for years.  That all changes a few weeks before school when he falls off his roof and gets amnesia.  He has no memory of who he was before the fall and soon finds out that the guy he was isn’t matching up to the guy he is now.  He used to torment the video club geeks but now he’s finding he likes making hilarious YouTube videos.  Now he has to decide if he wants to fall back into his “Alpha Rat” role with his old friends or try something new.

This book is all about fresh starts.  It teaches kids that even though they may make some bad decisions, there is still time to change who you are.  People aren’t perfect, but they can turn over a new leaf if they are motivated enough.  It also showcases harmful bullying culture in a way that’s palatable for middle schoolers.  It shows why bullying is bad and how being a bystander who doesn’t do anything about it is just as bad.  Because the book changes its first person point of view for each chapter, we end up seeing into the mind of the bully and the victim.  This is a fresh perspective because we also get to see his progression from weak to strong alongside Chase’s drastic changes.

Although featuring 8th graders, this book is perfect for upper elementary and middle schoolers alike.  Another great job by Gordon Korman!

Jurassic Park

While watching the introduction to The Great American Read on PBS, I noticed Jurassic Park.  I remembered when the movie came out being in elementary school and having to be reminded the dinosaurs were NOT REAL (thanks, mom), but I’d forgotten it was a book first.  So I decided to add it to my summer list.

In the book a group of experts and investors are invited to a small private island off the coast of Costa Rico where John Hammond has created a resort…with dinosaurs!  He found a way to re-create the dino DNA by splicing it with other animal DNA.  Some are skeptical, like Malcolm—a mathematician who sees that you can’t control chaos theory—and Gennaro—an investor who wants to shut down the enterprise and cut his losses.  Others are in awe, like Grant—a paleontologist who’s speciality is velociraptors—and Tim—Hammond’s grandson who’s a dinosaur fanatic.  While they are out touring the island, a disgruntled employee looking to make a few quick bucks cuts off the security system so he can smuggle out dinosaur embryos, and everything does downhill from there.  Without spoiling the story too much…THE DINOSAURS ESCAPE!

I thought the story was captivating and well told.  Even though it was published in 1990, it did not seem laughably dated.  The action was also well placed, so it had nice swells in the action where you were gripping your seat then lulling you back into a false comfort while waiting for the next catastrophic event to unfold.  The only downfall to the novel was the beginning of the book.  It took the first 80 pages or so for the story to really pick up because it was setting up who the characters were and the conflict between Hammond and everyone else in the story.  It also gives you the history of how genetics companies came to be, which is relevant to the story but not that engaging.  

Basically, if you can make it through the first part of the book, you will not be able to put it down once they get to the island.  A very deserving pick, PBS!

Rebound: (Another) Book in Verse

Kwame Alexander must be the master of teen novels in verse...over the past four years he’s written four novels in verse with another coming out in October!

Rebound is another basketball story and is the prequel to the book The Crossover.  This book takes place in the summer of 1988, right after Charlie Bell’s father died from a heart disease (the same genetic heart disease he has in The Crossover).  Charlie is not handling his grief well--he’s even pulled away from his two friends, Skinny and CJ--so his mother decides to send him to live with his grandparents in DC for the summer.  There his gruff grandfather tries to teach him about hard work and being a part of a team while his cousin Roxie teaches him to play basketball.  Charlie finds out that it’s okay to be sad, and it’s okay to use a little backboard for support.

I liked the story and the lessons it teaches, but I felt like this one was difficult to follow.  Since it’s written in verse, when dialogue is used, it’s hard to follow who’s talking, especially when there are more than two speakers.  Alexander has tried to differentiate the speakers by using italics for anyone who is not Charlie, but more separation is needed.  I kept having to reread and reread parts to clarify, and if I have to do it, I know the students have to as well.  

Sometimes books in verse just pull you in and you can’t put down the story...but this one was just a little flat compared to his other outstanding works.

Love & Luck

This sequel novel to Jenna Evans Welch’s Love & Gelato is more about heartache than finding love.  Lina’s story brought her to Italy, but her friend Addie’s story is all about Ireland.

Set three months after Love & Gelato, Addie and her family is attending her aunt’s destination wedding in picturesque Ireland, but all’s not well in Addie’s world.  She’s fighting with Ian, her closest brother, she has a secret at home she’s anxiously waiting to explode all over school, and her summer “boyfriend” has broken up with her leaving her heart feeling like it’s been stampeded by angry elephants.  The only thought keeping her afloat is knowing she will see her best friend Lina in a few days since her parents allowed her and Ian to fly to Italy instead of staying to see the Irish sights.  But Ian has plans of his own.  He’s planning on staying in Ireland (unbeknownst to their parents) and road tripping with Rowan, an Irish friend he met online.  Their goal is to visit pivotal moments from their favorite band’s time together then see their final concert at a huge outdoor festival.  Addie’s surprised and confused—Ian’s passionate about music and not football, like everyone at school thinks he is?  Due to unforeseen circumstances, Addie’s forced to go with them on their road trip.  Maybe a trip through Ireland will help heal her broken heart (like her quirky Irish guidebook says) or maybe it will all explode in her face…

Where Love & Gelato was a warm and gushy “will they, won’t they” tension, this story holds a totally different feel, just like Italy and Ireland have totally different aesthetic appeals.  Love & Luck is more of an achy, spiky tension because you know something bad happened between Addie and her crush, but you don’t find out what until the end.  That tension makes for a great story, but it also makes you a little anxious as a reader.

Just like the first, Love & Luck will make you want to pack your bags and travel there IMMEDIATELY, but just be ready for a love healing book instead of a love finding book.

The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Impostor

Contrary to popular belief, I DO take a long time reading some books (thank you, automatic library renewals).  This one I’ve had checked out for two months.  *GASP*  Typically I’m not a huge non-fiction fan.  I have to be really interested in the subject to get through non-fiction stories, but this book about a con man was just so intriguing.

In 1978, Christian Gerhartsreiter came to the US on a student visa and never left. He changed his name and moved from Boston to California to New York to New Hampshire to Boston.  After changing his name multiple times, he ended up inventing Clark Rockefeller, a distant relative of John D. Rockefeller, and he used his famous name to schmooze people.  From 1978 until 2008, he flitted around conning people with his charm until his true identity came out when his wife was getting a divorce.

In a time before smart phones and instant access Internet, it is just fascinating to see how a person could slip into the US undetected with no job, no social security card, no real identification, and make such a life for themselves.  He was married twice—once for a green card and once for prestige and money—and endeared himself to many people, from old ladies in San Mariano, California, to upper crust financiers in New York City.

Not only is he a con man, but when he’s caught, he is also charged with murdering the son of a woman he was conning in California.  The unsolved disappearance of Jon and Linda Sohus was not considered murder until years later, but each time the police tried to track down “Christopher Chichester” they came up empty handed.  It just added another element of suspense to this already fantastical story.

The one thing that bothered me about the writing style of this book was it was written in first person point of view as the author is researching the mysterious Gerhartsreiter.  Sometimes this was confusing because it swapped from “present day” (meaning 2011, when the book was written) to previous years as the author meandered through the con man’s paper trail.  

It was a fascinating book, but one that may not interest everyone.

Love & Gelato

This book is a really cute YA read (and it’s one of the SC Junior Book Award Nominees for 2018-2019) set in Florence, Italy.  It’s a love story and a mystery all wrapped into one.

Lina’s mom died from pancreatic cancer, and her last wish was for Lina (pronounced Leena) to go live with her very good friend Howard in Florence, Italy, where she studied abroad in college…except Howard turns out to be her non-existent father…and he lives in a cemetery, as the caretaker for a WWII monument.  Heartbroken and confused, Lina is trying to find out more about her mother’s time in Florence by reading her mother’s journal and retracing her steps.  With the help of Ren, the boy who lives next door, she finds out a secret about her mother’s past that could change Lina’s future forever.

Okay, so you know I’m a sucker for a cheesy romance book, and this one did not disappoint.  Even though I predicted the ending halfway through, it was still an enjoyable journey getting there.  Another thing I liked about this book was reading Lina’s mother’s journals.  You, the reader, were piecing the story together just like Lina, so it pulled you into the mystery of her mother’s past.  Also, any world traveler (or traveler at heart) will fall in love with the setting.  In Lina’s journey, she visits many of the famous sights of Florence and makes you feel like you’re experiencing them with her, from the Ponte Vecchio to the Duomo.

Also, it mentions Due West, South Carolina, as where Howard was originally from.  Due West is where my dad grew up and where my nana still lives...and is literally so small it only has a four-way stop and no traffic lights.  Yay for local connections!

Overall, it was a predictable read, but a fun read for any YA loving fans.