If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period

This middle grades book has been on my want to read list for awhile, so I’m glad i finally found the time to read it!  This middle grade novel is all about changing friendships and finding your place to belong, which are both very important to tweens and teens.

Kirsten cannot wait for seventh grade to start, if only to get away from her parents constant fighting and her mother’s concerns over her weight gain.  But she’s not prepared for her best friend to leave her for the popular crowd, leaving Kirsten feel like she doesn’t fit anywhere.  Walk is nervous for his first day of school, especially since he’s one of the few Black kids at his new private school.  He feels confident academically, but socially he feels like he’s a little out of his element.  He’s surprised that popular Brianna can get away with anything while people look at him with suspicion.  When an extra credit assignment brings Walk and Kirsten together, they find that maybe having a few nice, loyal friends is all you need to survive middle school.

This book pulled at my teacher heart-strings because I see many kids come into middle school trying to navigate the social minefields.  What happens when your friends outgrow you?  What happens when you’re the new kid?  How do you know who to befriend and trust?  What happens when your parents start fighting all the time?  Emotions in middle schoolers run high (remember, hormones), but they cannot be dismissed as trivial.  This story highlights the trials of middle school and all the mixed emotions that go along with it.  I was pleasantly surprised at this quick read.

Greetings from Witness Protection!

This middle grades book was a $2 find at our school’s last Scholastic book sale, and I knew I couldn’t pass it up!

Nicolette has been in the foster system since her father was incarcerated and her grammy died.  She’s been through five foster homes but always finds herself back at the Center because she doesn’t “stick.”  Then the US Marshall’s show up with an interesting proposition:  they are looking for kids willing to go into witness protection with a family to change their searchable profile.  Nicolette, now named Charlotte, joins the Trevor family who is on the run from a crime syndicate family.  Now she has to bond with her new parents, find a way to keep her new sullen younger brother from contacting his old friends, and keep her old kleptomaniac habits hidden so she doesn’t get sent away again.

This was a very well done book and has a lot of elements that would make middle grade kids enjoy it.  There’s a spunky lead who seems to outsmart those around her (even the adults).  There’s the suspense and threat of danger without overdoing the violence.  There’s the friend-dynamic of Charlotte trying to make new friends at school while trying to deflect the mean girl comments.  Overall, it was a very relatable book for upper elementary and middle schoolers (which is easy to understand when you read the author’s bio and find out he’s a current 5th grade teacher himself).  And parents will enjoy that the content is clean without any cursing or intimate situations.

New Year's Resolutions and Reading Challenges

I admit, I’ve never been one to pick a resolution for the new year (except that one year I tried to give up chocolate in college and it ended flopping like a professional basketball player).

So this year I’m doing something different:  I’m committing to a reading challenge.  

There are tons of reading challenges out there:  post a picture every day on a specific theme, read through the genres, read lesser known books with fewer review hits…but the one I’ve decided to do is the Unread Shelf Project for 2019.

My current unread stack of books

The rules are simple, read books you already own (or in my case, books that I’ve wanted to read but haven’t found the time).  I currently have a stack of 23 books next to my nightstand waiting to be read, another 18 books on my Kindle, and 71 books on my Goodreads “Want to Read” list.  And in all sincere honesty, I blame all of you for this.  You give me really good book recommendations.  My husband passes on great library finds to me.  Instagram is inundated with books, books, and more books.  I also blame myself.  I’m a mood reader, so if I’m reminded of a favorite book, I really want to go back to reread it (for example, I read Fangirl FOUR TIMES in 2018 because it’s my go-to book to destress my anxious mind).

So what are the specifics, you may ask?

• January:  read any unread book
• February: read a book gifted to you
• March:  read the book that’s been on your self the longest
• April: read the book you most recently acquired
• May: read a book you bought because of the movie/TV/theater adaptation
• June: read a book about travel or set in a country you’ve never been to
• July: read a book from a series on your shelf or one you already started
• August: read a book recommended for you by a friend
• September:  read a book you can buddy read with someone else
• October: read a book that scares you (can be its length, content, or genre that’s out of your comfort zone)
• November: read a book from your favorite genre
• December: read the shortest book on your shelf

Usually I read multiple books a month, so this will be one of my monthly picks to give me some emotional freedom to still moody read.

Want to join me?  I’d love the company and the accountability.

Happy reading in 2019!

Love a la Mode

This book is pure sugar and spice.  Rosie and Henry meet on the airplane to Paris, and soon realize they are both heading to the same place, an exclusive cooking school founded by Chef Laurent.  They are both excited and overwhelmed with their experience—Rosie with her lackluster cooking skills since she’s a pastry chef and Henry with keeping up with his academics and the pressure by his overbearing mother—but as the semester continues on, they realize that their connection is more than just as friends.

Honestly, this book was predictable.  The cooking school part was interesting, along with the diverse mix of characters from all over the world—30 kids from America to Sweden to Germany to England—but the whole story seemed very fluffy.  I kept mentally yelling at the book, “Why don’t you just talk to him/her instead of saying it in your head?  Then all the tension and drama would be resolved.”  

Did I enjoy reading it?  Sure.  Would I be okay handing this off to a high schooler, or even a middle schooler?  Sure.  I just felt like the characters could have been developed more and the teen hormonal drama toned down a smidge.  

**This book was just published!  Thanks to Net Galley and Disney-Hyperion for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.**

Love, Life, & the List

Kasie West currently reigns over sappy chick-lit stories in the middle school world.  Others have cycled through, but what I love about West’s writing is that it sets up love triangles and situations that relate to middle and high schoolers without all the unnecessary sex scenes.  My (current) favorite of hers is PS: I Like You, mainly because of the quirky characters and their banter.  Love, Life, & the List was good, just not my favorite.

This story is about Abby and Cooper, two best friends since 8th grade.  It’s their first summer together without their other two friends—Rachel’s touring Europe with her family and Justin’s on a church mission trip all summer—and Abby’s realizing that her unrequited love for Cooper may be one of the things holding her and her art back, along with her fear of change and her agoraphobic mother.  With the help of her mother and her grandfather, Abby makes a list of things to do over the summer—from trying something new to facing a fear to finding out a stranger’s story—to try and help her expand her world for herself and for her art.

Like I said, this book was just okay.  I guess I was frustrated at Abby most of the book because she knew Cooper didn’t like her back the same way, but she still enabled him to have a hold over her.  I know it’s harder to do than to just say “let him go” but her own personal happiness was so caught up in this one person that I just felt it to be unhealthy.  I do like how it shows that having more than one friend group is okay.  Each friend you have can bring something new out of you, and that’s what I feel Abby finally realized.  She’d been a four-some with her friends for so long, she didn’t have any other close friends to confide it.  So when two of the four were away for the summer, it forced her to make some new friends.  I’m not saying you need to be friends with everyone but having diverse friend groups you’re a part of is a good place to be.

Lois Lane: Double Down

We all know who Lois Lane is, but what about her life before meeting the infamous Clark Kent?  That is what this series focuses on.  

The first book, Fallout, introduced us to Lois (and her thick permanent record that follows her from school to school) and her first few weeks in Metropolis.  This is the second book in the series and picks up soon after the first book leaves off.  Lois and her friends from the Daily Planet offshoot The Scoop are looking for new investigative stories, not just feature pieces, when one bumps into Lois on the street…literally.  Melody—twin sister to Matty, one of Lois’s friends and Scoop colleagues—is in trouble and reluctantly decides to let Lois help find out what’s causing her dizzy spells.  At the same time, James—another Scoop colleague—asks for Lois’s help to figure out if his political father was falsely charged with embezzlement, causing him to go to jail.  As the two stories unfold, they start to seem like there’s more than coincidental timing linking them together.  During all this, Lois is also still messaging with SmallvilleGuy, a secretive teen she met online who’s quickly becoming one of her best friends and potential crush.

This book, in my opinion, did a lot better job keeping the reader hooked into the story.  I don’t know if the whole “get to know you” part of the first book just seemed forced or if I was really just in the mood to jump in without all the background stories, but this one was fast paced and had just enough quirky to make it a really enthralling read.  Lois and her take charge personality really do come through (and I really like how one promo blurb likened her to Veronica Mars, which is totally true).  You get to see her soften up a little bit, since she’s trying to figure out how to be a good friend while also sticking to the truth of her investigative stories.  Yes, there are some plot points that seem far-fetched, but the story is in the comic book world where there are alien superheroes living normal, teenage lives, so does it really matter?

I’m excited to see what Gwenda Bond’s newest installment, Triple Threat, will bring to the table…

Lois Lane: Fallout

Superheroes are big right now, raking in millions of dollars in movie and merchandise sales (I should know…my son was Spiderman this year for Halloween).  But what about the sidekicks?  Don’t they get a story too?  This book is the first in a YA series that revolves around Lois Lane, pre-Superman.

In Fallout, Lois is a high school student who just moved to Metropolis because of her military general father.  She doesn’t have the best track record with her old schools, but she’s determined to make a new start at her high school.  Meaning she’s going to keep her head down and stay out of trouble.  It works for about five minutes, until she sees another student being bullied by a group of kids who are eerily connected.  She quickly finds out through her new job at the teen Scoop newspaper, a small off-shoot of The Daily Planet, that this same group is targeting kids in a virtual reality game called World Wars Three.  Lois, with the help of her online friend SmallvilleGuy and her new Scoop buddies, soon realizes how far this group is willing to go to get what they want.

This book was a splurge buy at ReadUp Greenville after hearing the author talk about it on the Girl Power panel.  I enjoy superhero books and finding one that I think my kids would enjoy with a strong female lead sounded interesting.  However, this book was slow to start.  Maybe it’s because I’m nothing like Lois?  Maybe it’s because her constant need to snoop around was slightly annoying?  Maybe it was just getting a feel for the story and the whole virtual game aspect of it?  I don’t know what it was, but I had to read half-way into the book to fully get invested in the storyline and characters.  They grow on you the more you read, and by the end, I really liked the development of her friendships with her Scoop teammates.  

If you have a teen into the DC comics world, this book would be an appropriate one to pick up for your middle or high schooler.  And the story continues into two more books! 

The Darkdeep

So this middle grades read was an appropriate way to end by October reading.  Scary, horror reads aren’t really my thing (I have an overactive imagination, according to my mom), but I know lots of my kids really like the spooky, thriller stories.  This book is appropriately done with suspense without all the blood and gore that may scare off upper elementary kids.

After a bullying mishap, Nico, Emma, Tyler, and Opal find a hidden island in the middle of Still Cove, the eerie mist covered cove near their northwestern coastal town.  But the weirdest thing is the old houseboat floating on a lake with a swirling whirlpool under it.  They soon realize that this isn’t any ordinary island, and the secrets of the Darkdeep are more sinister than they first thought.

This is was a quick read for me, mostly because the authors pushed the action along as a fast pace without being confusing.  I also enjoyed the character dynamics, although Tyler and Emma seemed a little one-dimensional.  

I had the pleasure of hearing Brendan Reichs and Ally Condie speak about this novel at ReadUp Greenville this year, which was the main reason why I wanted to read it.  Their camaraderie and candidness was refreshing, and their playfulness does come through the characters as well.  Overall, it fits squarely into the “friends adventuring a secret while trying to outsmart their parents” genre of books.  This book seems to be geared more towards the tween crowd, as I could see my 8th graders scoffing at a few parts, but overall a solid start to the series (this is going to be a trilogy, so just be prepared for a little cliffhanger).  

Last Man Out

Mike Lupica is a popular sports author for kids, and it seems like his books have been on awards lists since I started teaching eleven years ago.  I’ve read a few of his books and have enjoyed them (even if sports books aren’t usually my go-to genre).  However, this book just missed the mark.

Tommy is all about football:  playing defense with his team, watching it on TV, or just talking about strategy with his father.  But when his firefighter father is killed while on a call, Tommy’s world is twisted.  He’s sad and angry and the only way he’s getting out his feelings is aggressively on the football field.  With a little sister who won’t come out of her room and a mom who expects him to be the “man of the house,” the only freedom Tommy finds is through a new sport:  skateboarding.

So, I get Tommy’s feelings, but they just seem slightly unbelievable.  Maybe because he’s supposed to be twelve, but he’s acting like an eighteen year old.  I work daily around twelve to fourteen year old boys, and they don't act this mature and think this rationally.  Yes, that means that they could learn something from Tommy's behavior, but I feel like they just would become uninterested in the book instead.

Another problem is the book is supposed to be a football book, but the most exciting thing that happens is Tommy learning to skateboard.  All the football games are quick, and they all come down to tied with four minutes to go in the game…which gets boring after you’ve read about it four times already.

I can see my middle school boys liking this book, but in my opinion, it’s not nearly as strong as his other books.

Ban This Book

Ban This Book is not your typical Alan Gratz novel.  The books I’ve read by him have been action-adventure (like Code of Honor, the SCJBA winner last year) or historical fiction stories (like Projekt 1065).  

This realistic fiction story is about Amy Anne, a fourth grader whose favorite book has just been banned from the library.  The library is her safe haven, the place where she can go for peace and quiet (unlike her hectic house and loud little sisters), but more and more books are being taken out for being “inappropriate for elementary schoolers.”  While Mrs. Jones, the librarian, is tied by law and must remove the books, that doesn’t mean Amy Anne can’t start her own banned book library out of her locker.  “Good books shouldn’t be hidden away.  They should be read by as many people as many times as possible.”

I throughly enjoyed reading this one!  It’s an easy read and appropriate for elementary and middle schoolers.  We talk about banned and challenged books at my school, but this puts it in a way that I feel kids can relate to easily.  It also shows what’s the right and the wrong way of doing things.  Amy Anne does get in trouble with the school and her parents for some of her actions (like taking books out of the library without permission), but I like her parents’ response.  They’re not angry she’s trying to speak up, “but there’s a right and a wrong way to voice your objections.”  And as an added bonus, all the books listed in the book are banned or challenged book titles.  This book is a win all around!

The School for Good and Evil

Soman Chainani, the author of The School of Good and Evil, is coming to Read Up Greenville this year, so I was excited to read the first book in this series.  I’m always up for a twisted fairy tale (see my review on As Old As Time), however, this one fell a little flat for me.

Sophie and Agatha live in the tiny town of Gavaldon where all kids are obsessed with reading fairy tales…because every four years two children are kidnapped and then later appear INSIDE the fairy tale stories.  Sophie is sure she will be kidnapped because she’s been meticulously planning her good deeds to show she’s the best choice.  Her sullen and reclusive friend Agatha thinks Sophie’s crazy, but when the girls are kidnapped, they are dropped into their fates…Agatha’s dropped into the School of Good and Sophie’s dropped into the School of Evil.  Sure there’s been a mistake, the two friends try to figure out a way to change places and find their Happily Ever After.  Easier said than done since they are up against a mysterious School Master, wolf and fairy guards (more vicious than they sound), and stereotypical classmates who want them to fail.

What originally got me to pick this one up was the premise:  what happens when good and evil are switched?  What if both sides claim to be good?  I found the concept interesting, but the execution, for me, was off.  First, I really didn’t like the characters.  Their classmates were so stereotypical (the villains were all ugly, glowering, and bent on beating Good; the princesses were all beautiful but vapid and shallow and the princes were even worse).  Sophie and Agatha had some character development, but it was slow and repetitive and unbelievable by the end.  The other thing that bothered me was the plot.  The story is 488 pages…and it feels like it.  Some of the plot seems to be added just because they wanted the story to be longer instead of driving and adding to the central story.  It was just frustrating because I had such high hopes for this novel, and it didn’t meet my expectations.

Teens may still enjoy this book (and all the drama involved), but for me, it didn’t live up to the hype.

The Bad Kids in 4B: Welcome to 4B

This book is the first in a series about a group of seventh graders in room 4B.  They’re labeled the “bad kids”…the ones who can’t get along with others, the ones with anger issues, the ones with some learning difficulties…and Mila knows she doesn’t belong here.  After pushing her teacher to tears, Mila’s moved to Miss Andrew’s class in 4B.  Mila’s new to the school but even she knows you don’t want to be sent to 4B and is trying to find a way out.

Each book in the series follows a different kid from the class, which is really nice because then you get to see their backstory.  As a teacher, I try to teach my kids not to judge someone based on one perception.  To truly know someone, you need to take the time to really understand their background and their story.  This story (and I’m assuming the next ones in the series) takes up that theme of not judging a book by it’s cover.

This series is what we call a HiLo book (high interest but low reading level).  The Lexile level for this book is only a 500, which is around a 3rd or 4th grade reading level, but the target audience for this book is upper elementary and middle schoolers.  This doesn’t mean the book is bad just because it’s low; it just means there’s a specific audience for this kind of book.  Although I found the book simple reading, I will probably get this for my school bookshelves because I know many kinds who need this level of book but also want the drama and interest of a normal middle school book.

**Thanks Net Galley for this free book in exchange for an honest review**

My Year in the Middle

This middle grades book is a must read in my book!  It also answers the question lots of students ask me when we study the Civil Rights Movement:  what about the other minorities?  Were they discriminated against just like black people?

It’s 1970 in Alabama, and Lu Olivera is stuck in the middle row of her 6th grade class.  Her school recently integrated, so the black students sit on one side of the room, the white kids sit on the other side of the room, and the kids who don’t quite fit in with either sit in the middle row.  Lu’s parents immigrated to America from Argentina, and she is the only kid in her class that knows Spanish.  Lu is shy and has a few friends, but when the governor’s race heats up between Wallace (the governor in power when integration was forced on the state and focuses on “bringing back Dixie”) and Brewer (the liberal candidate who disagrees with segregation), Lu is forced to pick a side:  white or black?  Along with the politics, Lu is also prepping for a field day race, trying to figure out boys, and attempting to understand what makes a good friend.

The themes of this book hooked me from the start.  Lu is trying to come to terms with her heritage and identity in her current culture.  She’s also learning about gumption and what it means to stand up for what you know is right, even when people try to stand in your way.  This book is one that I’ll recommend my students read, especially during our Civil Rights unit.  

**Thanks Net Galley for this free copy in exchange for an honest review!**

Offbeat

This month I’m trying to get through some of my free arcs (advanced readers copies) from Net Galley starting with this book by Megan Clendenan.

This is a cute story about Rose, a fourteen year old who’s going to folk festival with her fiddle group.  While there, she’s in a competition where the winner gets to play with Lunar, her favorite band.  For Rose, the competition means even more because her mother gave her an ultimatum before leaving…get serious about classical music or lose her music lessons.  Maybe if she wins to competition, she can show her mother that performing is her true passion.  

This book has a few conflicts:  best friend drama, a potential crush, a broken violin…but they all seemed to be resolved quickly and with minimal fuss.  While at the festival, Rose meets Liam, a boy who’s her biggest competition and keeps (accidentally) stealing her songs.  Liam invites her to a music jam session, but it’s after Rose’s curfew so she convinces Shiloh, her best friend, to cover for her, which ends up backfiring.  There wasn’t anything wrong with this book, but there wasn’t anything that made it stand out as special.  The best part of the book was the setting of the festival, which was quirky and fun.

This book is a fine upper elementary/middle school book, but I can see older kids getting a little bored with it.

*This copy was free from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.  Want to buy the book?  It comes out August 28th!

Graphic Novel Run-Down

This summer I’ve been on a graphic novel kick.  It started because I needed to fulfill a requirement for my summer reading bingo cards, but then I started looking at other teen graphic novels I hadn’t read but had heard about.

So here’s my run-down of my recent graphic novel reading:

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

Best thing:  Shows that “good” and “evil” are really just labels put on people, but what you should really look at are their actions.

Nimona shows up on Lord Ballister Blackheart’s doorstep hoping to be his next evil genius side kick.  She has the amazing skill to shift into any living form, but Blackheart’s a little wary about her hazy past.  While trying to prove the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics is up to no good, Blackheart must confront his once friend, now enemy Sir Abrosius Goldenloin and finds there’s more to Nimona than meets the eye.

Nothing Could Possibly Go Wrong by Prudence Shen & Fain Erin Hicks

Best thing:  Common ground can be found by anyone.

Charlie and Nate are neighbors and have grown apart.  Charlie is now the star player on the basketball team while Nate is the head of the robotics club.  When the school decides to let the student council decide how to use some discretionary funds—to buy new cheerleading uniforms or fund the robotics team at nationals—Nate decides to run for student body president.  Unfortunately for him, the cheerleaders—who would scare the mafia—signed Charlie up to run as well, knowing he would cave to their demands.  This basically leads to a war that no one can possibly win unscathed.

All Summer Long by Hope Larson

Best thing:  Friendships change, but they don’t always have to end because of change.

Bina is lonely because her best friend Austin has left for soccer camp, and she has nothing to do.  With no one else to hang out with, Austin’s older sister Charlie starts to share music with Bina and vice versa.  As Bina’s friendship with Charlie continues, her friendship with Austin starts to waver.  He’s not texting her, and when he comes back, he’s weirdly quiet about camp.  Bina’s worried about their friendship and turns to playing music to help her cope.

In Real Life by Cory Doctorow & Jen Wang

Best thing:  It shows how any person can make a difference, no matter how small.

Anda is new to Flagstaff, Arizona, and is into online gaming.  But her gaming experience changes when she meets Liza and starts going on missions that pay actual money.  On one of these missions she meets Raymond, a gamer in China who works for a company who tries to by-pass the rules of the game and help people cheat.  As Anda learns more about Raymond and his horrible working conditions, she is moved to try and help him, even though he’s a world away.

Mouse Guard:  Fall 1152 by David Petersen

Best thing:  Do what you know is right, even if it seems impossible.

The Mouse Guard was formed as a protection against outside attackers to their mouse kingdom.  However, an uprising is happening with a group of mice who are disgruntled at the guard’s inaction against their animal foes.  Three of the Mouse Guards find themselves in the middle of uprising and may be the only ones who can keep the kingdom together.

Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol

Best thing:  Don’t cave to peer pressure just because it makes you look “cool,” instead just be yourself.

Anya’s family is Russian, so she sticks out like a sore thumb at her New England prep school, no matter how hard she tries to fit in.  Then one day a freak accident leads her to the ghost of Emily, a girl who was tragically murdered but her body never found.  With Emily’s ghostly help, Anya starts to feel like she belongs at school and may even have a chance with her crush, until the benevolent ghost starts to turn malevolent.

El Deafo by Cece Bell

Best thing:  Our differences are our best superpowers, so don’t judge someone by their looks.

This is a semi-autobiographical tale of Cece, born hearing but after contracting meningitis when she was four, she is now severely deaf.  It’s fine at first because her class is all deaf kids, but after moving to a new school and getting a new bulky hearing aid, Cece isn’t so sure of herself.  To help cope with her feelings, she creates a superhero in her head, El Deafo, who gets to say what she can’t.

Out of these, my favorite would still have to be Nothing Could Possibly Go Wrong, but none of these were bad.  They are all different in their own ways, and that’s the best thing about graphic novels…they are for everyone.

There are many great graphic novels out there, but here are some of my all time favorites:

• Friends with Boys by Faith Erin Hicks
• Cardboard by Doug TenNapel
• Smile by Raina Telgemeier
• Rollergirl by Victoria Jamieson

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 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.

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.

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!