The Manny Files

Author: Christian Burch
Year: 2006
Publisher: Atheneum
Pages: 304
Reading Level: Intermediate (Ages 9-12)

Awards: 2007 Josette Frank Award

Genre: Realistic Fiction
Series Information: First of the Manny books
Location: New England (New York area)
Time Period: Present Day (2006)

Plot: Third grader Keats Dalinger is extremely excited about the new nanny his mother just hired--he's a boy just like Keats is! The nanny insists that everyone call him the Manny, but the fun doesn't end there. He puts fun notes in Keats' lunch, reminding him to "be interesting." He meets Keats after school wearing crazy costumes. And when Keats and his sisters are bored, the Manny always has an idea of something fun to do. Keats and his sisters India and Belly love the Manny, but the oldest Dalinger sibling, Lulu, has other ideas. She keeps notes of all of the weird things the Manny does in a notebook named the Manny Files, and Keats is afraid that she's hoping to gain enough ammunition to get the Manny fired. Lulu's done it before. Can the Manny win Lulu over too before it's too late? SPOILER! When Lulu calls a family council to reveal all of the Manny's misdeeds, Keats finally gets over his fear of his older sister and asserts his opinion that the Manny is the best nanny they've ever had. The Manny gets to stay, and Lulu learns to appreciate him as well.

Comments: I'll admit it: I originally picked this book up because it had a guy doing the Mary Poppins pose on the front of it. I love Mary Poppins! It didn't take long, however, to enjoy the book for it's own merits. The book is witty and clever, and I found myself laughing aloud many times. The plot is rather subtle, and not very developed or fast paced, but it seems the point of the book is more to show the Dalinger family and the Manny growing together and learning about each other on a day-to-day basis than it is about deciding whether or not the Manny should stay. Potentially hard issues are brought up in the book, but they're done so gently and light-heartedly that it doesn't get depressing. Keats himself is a fun, quirky character to pick as the narrator of the story. His starry-eyed worship of the Manny is endearing, as is the evidence that the Manny is someone who really encourages Keats to get out of his shell be who he really is. Younger children will enjoy the fun escapades the children have with the Manny, while older readers will enjoy the subtler themes as well.

Themes: Nannies, Bullies, Family, Death, Finding out who you really are

Red Flags: Keats' grandma dies; there are subtle comments about the growing relationship between the Manny and Uncle Max, but it's handled very gently and younger children probably won't even pick up on it.

A Firefly Named Torchy

Author/Illustrator: Bernard Waber
Year: 1970
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
Pages: 29
Reading Level: Beginning Reader (ages 4-8)

Awards: 1971 Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor

Genre: Picture Book
Location: The edge of the woods
Time Period: Present Day (1970)

Plot: Torchy the Firefly wants to join his friends in twinkling, glowing, flashing, and sending secret messages. But when he turns on his light, it's so bright that it feels like day. The day animals wake up, the night animals hide, and the flowers open up. Everyone complains that Torchy's light is too bright. Sad and dejected, Torchy wanders off on his own to figure out what the problem is. SPOILER! When Torchy sees the lights of a big city, he discovers that there are many different kinds of light. Torchy learns that his light is special and unique, and he decides that he shouldn't hide it just because it's different.

Comments: I originally found this book while I was looking for non-fiction books about fireflies, but the book's title and the lovely 1960's font (as seen here) made me want to read it. Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover.

Torchy is a cute little firefly, and the message of the book is a great one for kids. As with most picture books, the artwork tells most of the story on its own, with night-black pages splashed with thick, muted colors. The excitement of the city is show with big, bold strokes and bright colors. The text of the story is amusing too. A lot of repetition is involved, with Torchy and the lights around him twinkling and glowing and flashing. Perhaps a better example of this, though is the part where Torchy wakes up all of the forest animals and they all have the same reaction. The flow of the story is simple, but the repetition would make it a good one for both group and individual enjoyment.

Themes: Fireflies, Self-Confidence

Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Author: Salman Rushdie
Year: 1991
Publisher: Viking
Pages: 219
Reading Level: Young Adult

Awards: 1992 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature

Genre: Fantasy
Location: On Earth, in a city that has forgotten its name in the mythical country of Alifbay; Also, the mythical moon Kahani
Time Period: Once upon a time (but in the near past)

Plot: Rashid Khalifa is a storyteller who is so good at his craft that people clamor for his stories from miles around. However, when his wife leaves him and his son, Haroun, Rashid loses the will to tell another story. Alarmed, Haroun decides to go on a quest to restore his father's storytelling ability. With the help of the water genie Iff and his mechanical Hoopoe bird Butt, Haroun flies to the moon Kahani, where the source of all stories, the Ocean of the Streams of Story, is located. There, Haroun finds trouble is brewing. The evil villain Khattam-Shud is poisoning the streams of story, and plotting to put a stopper in the wellsprings of the ocean. Khattam-Shud has also captured Princess Batcheat, and he is threatening to sew up the lips of her and her rescuers in an attempt to rule the world and turn it into a place of eternal silence and darkness. It is up to Haroun and his friends to defeat Khattam-Shud before it becomes too late. SPOILER! Haroun and his friends succeed when Haroun manages to get the moon to start turning again, assuring that no one will ever be in complete darkness forever. Khattam-Shud's evil lairs of ice and shadow are ruined in the sunlight. Because Haroun has helped save Kahani, the people of Kahani offer Haroun a boon. He wishes for a happy ending, and arrives home to find that everyone is happy, Rashid's powers of storytelling have been rekindled, and Haroun's mother has come back home.

Comments: I read this book for book club, and it was interesting to see the different opinions people had about it. One person loved it. Another person couldn't stand the writing style. The book had many elements of a classic hero adventure tale, which is something I love, but I could see where the person who didn't like the book was coming from.

Rushdie's writing style is very epic and exotic. He frequently repeats the same idea three times in three different ways. For example, Rashid the storyteller is an Ocean of Notions, the Shah of Blah, given the Gift of Gab, etc. The repetition sets the tone of the story nicely, but it also has an edge of humor in it. This is, after all, designed as a child's tale. The humor can be somewhat off-putting because it is sometimes silly, but it is something that children should love.

This is a story that I think adults would appreciate too. Despite the sometimes silly humor and repetition, there are many layers of meaning to the story. What goes on in Kahani can be directly related to what is going on down on Earth below. The book also tries to raise the question, "what's the use of stories if they're not real?"

Haroun is a likeable character whose braveness is fueled by his love for his father and by his yearning for Rashid to be happy. Most of the other characters are somewhat cookie-cutter characters, but that works for this type of story.

I liked the story a lot, and I would recommend it to others. The ending left a little something to be desired because it all ended so suddenly and so neatly, but it is the classic happy ending that a tale of good vs. evil should have.

Themes: The power of Storytelling, Good vs. Evil

Red Flags: Haroun's mother leaves Rashid for the upstairs neighbor, who ends up being Khattam-Shud.

Multicultural Elements: Although this is a fairy tale, the characters and storytelling elements are very much influenced by an Indian/Asian storytelling influence.

What Charlie Heard: The Story of American Composer Charles Ives

Author/Illustrator: Mordecai Gerstein
Year: 2002
Publisher: Live Oak Media
Pages: 32
Reading Level: Beginning Reader (ages 4-8)

Awards: ALA Notable Book 2003, Horn Book Fanfare 2002

Genre: Picture Book/Historical Fiction
Location: Small Town America
Time Period: 1874-1954

Plot: Describes the life of American composer Charles Ives (1874-1954), who wrote music which expressed all the sounds he heard in the world, but which was not well received during his lifetime. SPOILER! At the end of the book, Charlie's music is accepted, and he contemplates writing his greatest work, the Universe Symphony.

Comments: The magic of picture books is that sometimes there is a story that can be told better in pictures than it can through words. Gerstein does a good job of using words to explain how everything Charlie heard could be considered music—from the swish of his mother's skirts to the creaking of a door. Then he shows how Charlie hears the world by filling the pictures full of sounds. By the end of the book, it's hard to see the pictures for the number of sounds that are written across the pages. The pictures are warm and bright, and the text is engaging. Because there is so much going on in the text and in the pictures, this would be a good story for older children who are learning to read on their own rather than for younger children.

This story made me want to learn more about Charles Ives. I even checked out a CD of his music the next time I went to the library because of the book. (Gerstein even recommends a CD at the end of the book.) Combining this book with a sample of a CD would help children find more meaning in the music. Parents and teachers can say, "Remember that part where Charlie's dad directed two bands at once? Can you hear them in this song?" or "What do you think Charlie was thinking of when he wrote this piece?"

Themes: Music, Modernism, Persistence, Doing what you love

The Book Thief

Author: Markus Zusak
Year: 2006
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Pages: 550
Reading Level: Young Adult

Awards: 2007 ALA Best Books for Young Adults, 2007 Book Sense Book of the Year Award, 2007 Michael L. Printz Honor, 2007 Ten Best Books for Young Adults, and many others

Genre: Historical Fiction/World War II
Location: Molching, Germany (just outside of Munich)
Time Period: 1930's and 40's (World War II)

Plot: On the way to stay with foster parents in Molching, Germany, Liesel Meminger's brother dies. Traumatized by the event, Liesel has a recurring nightmare about the incident. Liesel eventually learns to deal with her grief in a number of ways: She learns to read with the help of her step-father, Hans, and a select number of books she steals throughout the story. She becomes best friends with her next door neighbor, Rudy Steiner. She visits the mayor's wife, and learns of her story. When air raids come, she reads to her neighbors as they wait together in a bomb shelter. She makes fast friends with Max, a Jew her parents are hiding from the Nazis in their basement. Leisel then writes of all of these experiences in a journal, which Death later finds, reads, and relates to the reader. SPOILER! Leisel is up late one night, writing in her journal, when the street she lives on is hit in an air raid. Everyone who lives on the street dies except for Liesel, who is eventually reunited with Rudy's father and Max.

Comments: This book may look daunting, but the author writes in a very clipped, short style that makes the book easy to get through. I never consciously sat down to read this book. I read it in stolen moments, and got through a lot of it that way.

The idea of having Death as the narrator is an interesting one. Despite all of the red flags written below, this book didn't seem too gruesome to me. It is a war story, so that must be kept in mind, but Death tries to find a kind of poetry in the world around him that makes the concept easier to deal with. However, Death is also extremely snarky, and his dark sense of humor sometimes got a little old. Take the last line of the book: "I am haunted by humans."

The best part of this book was the characters. They all seemed very fleshed out and very real to me. Liesel's step-father is so loving and kind you want to give him a great big hug. Liesel's step-mother is the typical hard-shell-on-the-outside, warm-and-caring-on-the-inside person. And Liesel's best friend, Rudy Steiner, steals the show. I kept rooting for him to succeed, even though he kept getting beaten down. Even minor characters such as the lady down the street and the mayor's wife have endearing qualities. Liesel was a real person to me, but having Death as the narrator made her not as fleshed out as she could be. I wanted to hear the story in her voice.

Although I liked the tone of the book, as set by Death's strange little asides and jokes, I also found the writing style somewhat annoying. Death is not a good storyteller. He gives away major plot points 50 or 100 pages before you even want to know them, and when you do get to the critical part, it doesn't seem as momentous because he'd already told the main points of the story eons ago, and he doesn't repeat them.

Overall, I liked the book. I liked the message, I loved the characters, and for the most part, I liked the writing style. I just wish the narrator had built up the climax a little more.

Themes: World War II, Nazi Party, Jews, Stealing, Friendship, Love, Books, Standing up for what you believe in, Death

Red Flags: Profuse swearing (mostly in German, so you can't understand it); Description of some of the lighter effects of war--a man comes back from war with a bloody stump for a hand, bombings, air raids, plane crash, Death talks about all of the casualties of war he has to pick up, etc.; Emaciated Jews are forced to march through the city streets; Death describes his job; Stealing books, food, etc.; Bullies.

Multicultural Elements: Max is a German Jew.

Coraline

Author: Neil Gaiman
Illustrator: Dave McKean
Year: 2002
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 162
Reading Level: Young Adult

Awards: 2003 ALA Notable Children's Book, 2003 ALA Best Books for Young Adults

Movie Adaptation: Coraline

Genre: Suspense/Adventure/Horror
Location: A large house which has been renovated into apartments
Time Period: Present Day (2002)

Plot: When Coraline goes exploring in her new home, she finds a door that leads to nothing—the room behind it has been bricked up. However, weird things are happening, and Coraline is hearing strange noises coming from that door. When Coraline investigates, she finds that the door is suddenly not bricked up any more. Instead, what's behind it is an exact replica of her own house, only better and more exciting. An exact replica of Coraline's mother and father are there too, and they're happy to see her. There's just one problem. Coraline's Other Mother and Other Father and all of the other living beings in that world have black buttons for eyes. Coraline thinks this other world is wonderful, but in order to stay, she must replace her eyes with buttons too. SPOILER! When Coraline refuses the Other Mother's offer, the Other Mother takes revenge. She kidnaps Coraline's real parents, and is keeping them and the souls of other children she has captured in hidden places throughout the Other house. It is up to Coraline to find the souls of the other children and her parents before the Other Mother successfully steals Coraline's soul as well. With every soul Coraline finds, the Other Mother gets more and more vengeful. And when Coraline succeeds, she still must get through the bricked up door before she gets trapped in the Other World forever.

Comments: I have never read Alice in Wonderland, but this seems like a more menacing version of the Alice series. With that said, this may seem like an extremely terrifying book, but the scariness factor was mostly okay for me, and I don't do very well with scary. It obviously helped me that this is a horror book written for children, but I think older children should be fine with it as well. Coraline is definitely a braver, pluckier heroine than I would ever be, but that's the point. You have to be that strong when you are facing evil forces.

If this book was all about the scariness of the situation (see below for examples), I definitely would not have liked it. However, there were a few good morals/important points that helped me like the book and helped me see a point for the strangeness of it all:

1. Coraline realizes that the witch and the scary things around her don't really have any power. In the words of the book, the Other Mother "could only twist and copy and distort things that already existed" (p. 118).
2. Coraline realizes that giving in to the Other Mother will not make her happy: "I don't want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted? Just like that, and it didn't mean anything" (p. 120). Ah Coraline, you are so wise.
   

Themes: Importance of Family, Sticking up for What You Believe In, Confronting Fears, Learning that Immediate Happiness is not always the Best Kind of Happiness, Using Your Head to Think Through Problems

Red Flags: Battling a Witch, Humans turning into Blobs, Disappearing Parents, A Man who always has Rats up his Sleeves/Under his Hat, Sinister Plots, People with Buttons for Eyes, An Animate Yet Disembodied Hand Chasing Coraline. (For the Movie: A Claymation/Digital Lady who is Mostly Naked)

All in Just One Cookie

Author: Susan E. Goodman
Illustrator: Timothy Bush
Year: 2006
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Pages: 32
Reading Level: Intermediate (ages 9-12)

Awards: 2007 ALA Notable Book

Genre: Picture Book/Non-Fiction
Location: Grandma's Kitchen/All over the World
Time Period: Present Day (2006)

Plot: While Grandma gathers and mixes each of the ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies, the cat and the dog research how each ingredient is made and how it all mixes together to create a delicious treat.

Comments: This book pulls out all the stops in trying to teach children where their food comes from in an interesting and entertaining way. The pictures are bright and attractive, and the hungry dog and curious cat are fun to watch. Little jokes are made on each page. My favorite joke comes from the chickens who state, "I'm not crossing that road!" when they see the cat driving the eggs to the store.

The information in the book seems solid, and it goes into more detail than I thought a picture book would. For example, children get a small food chain lesson when they learn about the ecosystem surrounding saltwater ponds. The book ends with a map of the world depicting where each ingredient comes from. A recipe for chocolate chip cookies is found on the very last page of the book. This book may be used for information for young children's reports, but more information would probably be needed for older audiences.

Themes: Baking, History of Ingredients, Chocolate Chip Cookies

Red Flags: None

How I Became a Pirate

Author: Melinda Long
Illustrator: David Shannon
Year: 2003
Publisher: Harcourt
Pages: 44
Reading Level: Beginning Reader (ages 4-8)

Awards: 2004 ALA Notable Book, 2004 Book Sense Book of the Year

Genre: Picture Book/Adventure
Series Information: First of the Pirate books
Location: High Seas
Time Period: Present Day (2003)

Plot: When Braid Beard and his crew land at the beach, they meet Jeremy Jacob, a boy whose family is vacationing at the beach that day. Braid Beard notices Jeremy's talents at digging in the sand, and he asks Jeremy to join the crew and help them find the perfect place to bury their treasure. Jeremy agrees, and at first he enjoys eating with his mouth open and staying up past his bedtime. Jeremy starts to rethink his decision when he realizes that pirates don't get a bedtime story and goodnight kiss each night. SPOILER! When a terrible storm hits, and the ship loses its mast, Jeremy decides he has had enough of being a pirate. He suggests that Braid Beard and the crew hide their treasure in his back yard, which they do with the promise that they'll come by to see if he ever needs help.

Comments: Boys especially will like this story of a boy who gets to act up as much as he wants, but determines that he'd rather be home with his parents. Shannon's paintings are full of detail, and his pirates are hilarious. Even on pages that are mostly text, pirates are drawn around the edges, giving the effect of pirates looking at you from above as you lay on the floor looking up. The text is fun, but the best part of it is the crew's habit of repeating whatever it is the captain says in large, bold, messy letters.

Themes: Pirates, Treasure, Acting Up, Appreciating Regular Life

Red Flags: Small instances of Peril; Most of the characters are pirates, but they're harmless ones.

Baby Brains: The Smartest Baby in the Whole World

Author/Illustrator: Simon James
Year: 2004
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Pages: 32
Reading Level: Beginning Reader (ages 4-8)

Awards: 2004 Horn Book Fanfare award

Genre: Picture Book/Fantasy
Series Information: First of the Baby Brains series
Location: Anytown, USA
Time Period: Present Day (2003)

Plot: Mr. and Mrs. Brains wanted their baby to be smart, so even before he was born Mrs. Brains read to him at night and played classical music and foreign language tapes during the day. The morning after Mr. and Mrs. Brains bring him back from the hospital, he is discovered reading the newspaper and he fixes the family car. He attends school and earns a medical degree in a matter of weeks. When NASA finds out about Baby Brains, they ask him to go on the next space mission. SPOILER! Finding himself alone in the middle of space, Baby Brains finally does something normal: he asks for his mommy. Baby Brains is sent back home, where he decides to enjoy the benefits of being a baby, except for on weekends when he helps out at the local hospital.

Comments: Children will probably love the absurd idea of a baby who is so smart that he can fix a car, practice medicine, and become an astronaut. Simon James has an artistic style similar to that of Quentin Blake of the Roald Dahl books fame. In fact, the slightly absurd subject matter and pictures made me feel like I was reading a Roald Dahl book written for younger readers.

Themes: Genius Children, Babies, The importance of families

Red Flags: None

Duck and Goose

Author/Illustrator: Tad Hills
Year: 2006
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade Books
Pages: 40
Reading Level: Beginning Reader (ages 4-8)

Awards: 2007 ALA Notable Book for Children

Genre: Picture Book
Series Information: First book in the Duck & Goose series
Location: A ball sitting in the grass in a meadow
Time Period: Present Day (2006)

Plot: When Duck and Goose spot a large white ball with yellow, orange, and red spots on it, they mistake it for an egg. The two begin to fight over whose egg it is, and they eventually decide to raise it together. SPOILER! When a bluebird comes by and asks if he can play with their ball too, Duck and Goose realize their mistake, and they begin playing with the ball instead of sitting on it.

Comments: This was a very cute story. Hills manages to teach children about cooperation and sharing without hitting them over the head with the message. Hills also tries to keep children's interest with the text, making shouted phrases in bigger fonts and placing text in different places on the page. Perhaps the most successful part of this story is Hills' description of Duck and Goose, who are both comical characters. A lot of this comes through in Hills' artwork. His paintings are bright and fun. I especially enjoyed the expressions and mannerisms he manages to give Duck and Goose even though they're simply drawn.

Themes: Sharing, Friendship, Cooperation, Mistaken Identity

Red Flags: None

At Night

Author/Illustrator: Jonathan Bean
Year: 2007
Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Pages: 32
Reading Level: Beginning Reader (ages 4-8)

Awards: 2007 Horn Book Fanfare award, 2008 Charlotte Zolotow Award

Genre: Picture Book/Realistic Fiction
Location: New York City at Night
Time Period: Present Day (2007)

Plot: A young girl who cannot sleep feels a breeze coming from her bedroom window. She picks up her pillow and blankets and follows the breeze upstairs to the roof of their house in New York City, where she makes a bed out of two garden chairs. She then falls asleep after watching the stars. The last page shows the mother sitting next to the little girl, enjoying the peace and quiet.

Comments: The soothing, rhythmic text and the calm, muted pictures make this book an excellent choice for bedtime reading. It was obvious to me that the author is an artist rather than a storyteller because sometimes the text is interrupted at an odd place for the insertion of another picture, but this doesn't really matter that much since it is in the pictures that the story is truly told. This book makes me wish I had a rooftop garden to sleep in during the summer months.

Themes: Having Trouble Sleeping, New York at Night, Enjoying the world around you.

Red Flags: None

Spacer and Rat

Author: Margaret Bechard
Year: 2005
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Pages: 183
Reading Level: Young Adult

Awards: 2006 ALA Best Books for Young Adults

Genre: Science Fiction
Location: Freedom Station, an asteroid that has been colonized by humans located in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Time Period: Far Future, when Earth is too crowded an people move to other planets in an attempt to survive.

Plot: Jack is a Spacer, a person born and raised on the asteroid Freedom Station. Kit is a Rat, a child who now has to scrounge for food since her parents died and left her alone at Freedom Station on the voyage from Earth to the asteroid colony Seattle Prime. Rats are particularly frowned upon by the people living in Freedom Station, who believe that if a person is not contributing to their community, they are just wasting valuable resources. Jack wants nothing to do with Kit, but when his friends try to corner Kit and turn her in for a reward, he feels sorry for her and helps her escape. Suddenly Jack finds himself involved in a problem he never expected. Before Kit's dad died on the journey from Earth to Freedom Station, he created the first sentient robot, a robot who named himself Waldo. Now different warring factions are trying to steal Waldo, hoping to use his advanced technology to create the new ultimate weapon. Jack must help Kit and Waldo escape the authorities and find transportation to Seattle Prime, where a colleague of Kit's father lives, before it's too late. SPOILER! After many close calls and daring adventures, Jack, Kit, and Waldo discover that the colleague at Seattle Prime is actually the leader of one of the terrorist groups that is trying to kidnap Waldo to make the universe's next ultimate weapon. Unsure of where to go or how to hide, Waldo decides to go off on his own and try to create other sentient robots to form his own colony. Convinced that splitting up is the best way to go, Kit returns with Jack to Freedom Station, where she will try to find a job and wait until Waldo sends her word that he's safe.

Comments: As is common with many science fiction and fantasy novels, it sometimes takes a while for the author to explain the concept of the book and do a little "world building." Bechard does a good job of world building without making the text slow down too much, but I found all of the slang a bit hard to get used to, and each time I picked the book up it took me a bit to adjust to the rhythm enough to figure out what was going on. Who knew that "spam" would be a swear word in the far future? "True fact." Once I got into the story, however, the plot flowed nicely and it built up to a very satisfying and exciting chase scene in the climax. The ending was somewhat open-ended, which made me wonder if this book has a sequel planned. While the slang may be off-putting to some people, readers who enjoy science fiction will probably enjoy this book.

Themes: Space Colonies, Sentient Robots, New Technology, War, Learning to get to know people before you judge them.

Red Flags: Mild things: Breaking in to a store; Stealing; A lot of swearing, but not with words we consider swear words; Someone is shot, but it turns out they were just hit with a stun gun instead of an actual gun with bullets.

Uglies

Author: Scott Westerfeld
Year: 2005
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Pages: 425
Reading Level: Young Adult

Awards: 2006 ALA Best Books for Young Adults

Genre: Science Fiction
Series Information: First of the Uglies series
Location: The Smoke
Time Period: Unknown Future

Plot: Tally Youngblood can't wait until she turns sixteen. Then, she will undergo mandatory intensive plastic surgery and be able to go live with her best friend Peris, who lives in New Pretty Town. New Pretty Town is a suburb of the city where all the "New Pretties" live with only one goal in mind--to have fun. Then Tally meets Shay, a girl Tally's age who scorns the idea of living in the idealistic world of the Pretties. Instead of showing up for her mandatory operation, Shay runs off to join the people who live in "The Smoke." The people in The Smoke are in hiding, and the authorities want to hunt them down. One of the authorities (called the Specials), Dr. Cable, refuses to let Tally have her operation until she follows Shay into The Smoke wearing a tracking device that will allow Dr. Cable and the Specials to hunt Shay and her friends down. Tally does as she is told, but she becomes conflicted when she meets the people of The Smoke, especially a boy named David, and she hears their side of the story. SPOILER! According to David and his parents, a beautiful body is not the only thing you get when you go in for your mandatory operation at the age of sixteen. The doctors also create lesions in your mind so you don't question authority. Tally had decided that she wanted to stay in The Smoke, but when she accidentally sets off her tracking device and some, including Shay, are captured, and when she hears of the Specials' scheme, Tally volunteers to turn herself in and become a Pretty in an effort to help David and his family undermine the Specials from the inside.

Comments: Westerfeld raises up some interesting issues in this novel. What does a perfect society look like? What would it act like? Is it worth taking away people's free agency to create this society? One appealing thing about this novel is that these issues are present, but the characters and story are strong enough that they can stand alone and the novel is not too preachy. Tally is a little whiny for me, but she's also plucky and ready for adventure. I can see why this is such a popular series.

Themes: Image, Conformity, Utopian Societies, Big Brother Societies, Rebels

Red Flags: There is some violence, but it's not very graphic, Tally wanders into a sort of orgy garden when she's sneaking into the New Pretties' area, but nothing is described.

The Arrival

Author/Illustrator: Shaun Tan
Year: 2006
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
Pages: 128
Reading Level: Young Adult

Awards: 2008 ALA Notable Book, 2007 New York Times Best Illustrated award, 2008 Ten Best Books for Young Adults, and many many others

Genre: Graphic Novel/Fantasy
Location: A new land
Time Period: late 1800s/early 1900s

Plot: A man travels by steamship to a new and exotic land, where the animals, food, words, currency, and almost everything else about the place are completely unfamiliar to him. SPOILER! With the help of friendly people and the companionship of an odd gilled animal that resembles half lizard half dog, the man builds a new life in the country, and sends for his family to join him there.

Comments: This wordless graphic novel was completely different from what I expected it to be. Tan captures the immigrant experience in a somewhat disturbing, surrealistic style, but that is how a person feels when they've moved to a strange new place. The pictures are absolutely beautiful. Depicted in rich sepias and dark blacks and grays, Tan even gives the book the feeling of an old photo album by making some pages look crumpled and mold-spotted, and by including cracks and tears in the pictures. It is obvious that he spent a lot of time on this book, and I appreciated the note he included in the back that talked about all the research he did and how he tried to model his pictures after old photographs of Ellis Island, the Titanic, and other subject-appropriate depictions of the past.

Themes: Immigration, Coping with Change, New Places, Oppression, Friendship

Red Flags: Disturbing images of what immigrants to the new country have left behind: a battlefield strewn with skeletons, large men who are setting the city on fire, long tentacled arms looming over a city.

Multicultural Elements: The main character is Caucasian, but he meets many different people from many different cultures.

Black? White! Day? Night!

Author/Illustrator: Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Year: 2006
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Pages: 24
Reading Level: Beginning Reader (ages 4-8)

Awards: 2007 ALA Notable Children's Book

Genre: Picture Book/Movable Book
Location: Anywhere
Time Period: Present Day (2007)

Plot: This book discusses opposites in a question and answer format. Each page is a lift-the-flap with holes cut so the reader can see a section of what is on the inside of the page. What seems like one thing on the top of the flap is revealed to be its exact opposite when the flap is lifted.

Comments: This book was very entertaining and educational. It not only contains flaps that children will love to lift, but the illustrations are bold and bright. The opposites used are sometimes unexpected, and will keep even older children guessing. My favorite page was the Sad? Happy! page.

Themes: Opposites

Red Flags: None

Apples to Oregon

Extended Title: Apples to Oregon: Being the (Slightly) True Narrative of How a Brave Pioneer Father Brought Apples, Peaches, Pears, Plums, Grapes, and Cherries (and Children) Across the Plains
Author: Deborah Hopkinson
Illustrator: Nancy Carpenter
Year: 2004
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Pages: 40
Reading Level: Beginning Reader (ages 4-8)

Awards: 2005 ALA Notable Book, 2004 Golden Kite Award

Genre: Picture Book, Historical Fiction/Tall Tale/Western
Location: Oregon Trail
Time Period: Early 1800s

Plot: A tall tale based loosely on the life of Henderson Luelling, this book describes what it might have been like on the trail when a farmer from Iowa tries to bring not only his family across the prairie to Oregon, but also hundreds of fruit trees and vines as well. The family encounters adventures such as crossing the Platte and Columbia Rivers, dust storms, droughts, dangerous mountain passes, and the oncoming threat of winter.

Comments: Hopkinson writes in an amusing, singsong tone that sounds just like someone telling a western tall tale. Although this is the story of Henderson Luelling, children will like the fact that it is the main character, Delicious, who saves the trees again and again. Carpenter's oil paintings are fun and bright and golden, matching the tone of Hopkinson's tall tale. The end of the book includes a note about the source of the tale, describing who Henderson Luelling really was and giving a little bit of the history of what it takes to grow apples. Children can learn something with this book without feeling like the information is being crammed down their throats.

Themes: Crossing the Plains, Pioneers, Fruit, Apples, Henderson Luelling

Red Flags: A mighty dust storm requires all of the children to take off their clothes and drape them over the fruit trees, other slight instances of peril

The Secret Olivia Told Me

Author: N. Joy
Illustrator: Nancy Devard
Year: 2007
Publisher: Just Us Books Inc.
Pages: 32
Reading Level: Beginning Reader (ages 4-8)

Awards: 2008 ALA Coretta Scott King Award

Genre: Picture Book/Realistic Fiction/Christian Fiction
Location: A schoolyard in urban America
Time Period: Present Day (2007)

Plot: When Olivia tells her best friend a secret, the secret gets spread around the schoolyard, getting bigger and stranger with each telling. SPOILER! Olivia's friend must confess that she told the secret in order to keep their friendship intact.

Comments: Joy, a popular urban Christian fiction writer, addresses the issue of being trustworthy with a simple, catchy rhyme that children should enjoy. However, it is the pictures that are the most interesting part of this book. Most of the pictures are black and white, showing silhouettes of each child. The secret is depicted in the form of a bright red balloon, with a string trailing from the mouth of the child who told it. As the secret is spread, the balloon gets bigger and bigger. The balloon pops when Olivia's friend confesses that she told the secret.

Another interesting part of this book was the list of questions provided at the end of the book. The questions are designed to help parents open up a discussion with their children as to why it is wrong to tell secrets about other people. This could be a heavy topic for some parents and children, but it may be useful for those parents who are having trouble explaining to their children why one should not tell lies and secrets.

Themes: Lies, Friendship, Urban Christian Fiction

Red Flags: None

Multicultural Elements: The book includes children of many races, but most of the children are African-American.

The Hidden Children

Author: Howard Greenfeld
Year: 1993
Publisher: Ticknor & Fields
Pages: 118
Reading Level: Intermediate (ages 9-12)

Awards: 1994 Horn Book Fanfare Award

Genre: Non-Fiction/Memoirs
Location: Europe
Time Period: World War II

Book Summary: What would it be like to be a Jewish child during World War II? This book tries to answer this question by giving the accounts of people who survived the Holocaust as children. Some were taken in by non-Jewish families and given new names and identitites, some were hidden in convents and orphanages, and others spent much of their childhood years on the run. Includes information on the causes of the war, memories of the children interviewed, and discussion of the aftereffects of the War.

Comments: Greenfeld does a good job painting the scenery. His description of what was happening, combined with photographs of Jewish children and their accounts of what happened to before, during, and after the War, creates a seamless work. Although this book can be rather depressing, one good thing about this book is that Greenfeld is interviewing survivors of the war. This work does not spend time talking about the concentration camps, but instead focuses on those who managed to keep away from the camps. This is still a sobering tale, and even though the text is easy enough to read, I wouldn't recommend this book to younger age range of children that it's written for.

Themes: Holocaust, Anti-Semitism, Survival, Being in Hiding

Red Flags: Descriptions of poor living conditions, health problems, and light discussion of people who were caught and killed both in and out of the concentration camps

Victory

Author: Susan Cooper
Year: 2007
Publisher: Aladdin
Pages: 224
Reading Level: Intermediate (ages 9-12)

Awards: 2007 National Social Studies Trade Book

Genre: Fantasy/Adventure/Historical Fiction
Location: Connecticut, England, H.M.S. Victory
Time Period: 1803-1806/Present Day (2006)

Plot: Molly Jennings is an English girl who lives in 2006, while Sam Robbins is a farm boy who was pressed into service on H.M.S. Victory back in 1803. Their stories are told simultaneously, and each character has a different yet similar problem to face. While Sam has to learn about the perils of life on the sea and is involved in the famous battle of Trafalgar, Molly also has to deal with homesickness and loneliness when she moves to Connecticut, where her new father's job is located. Molly and Sam's lives are connected when Molly finds Robert Southey's book Life of Nelson at a nautical souvenir shop. Pasted inside the cover of the book is a scrap of the flag that covered Lord Nelson's body after he died. Sam had been given that piece of flag, and passed it on to his children, who pasted it into the book. SPOILER! Molly and Sam's lives truly converge when Molly goes back to England for a week in an attempt to get over her homesickness. While there, her grandfather takes her to Portsmouth, where they take a tour of H.M.S. Victory. There, Molly reconnects with Sam and experiences through Sam's eyes the battle of Trafalgar and the death of Lord Nelson. Molly later discovers that the reason she had such a vivid experience is because she is actually a descendant of Sam's.

Comments: The idea of two people being connected through time is an interesting one, and Cooper does a good job of helping you feel the connection between these two individuals. I think this story would have worked just as well if Cooper had focused solely on Sam's experience aboard H.M.S. Victory, but the addition of Molly's story adds depth of feeling to the plot. The hard issues of death, war, and Molly's depression over her homesickness and her father's death, make this a book I wouldn't recommend to younger readers, but it might be an interesting way for older readers to learn about one of England's most famous battles.

Themes: Battle of Trafalgar, Sea Voyages, Homesickness, Separation from Loved Ones, Coping with Trauma

Red Flags: Description of Battle Scenes, Death, Description of Poverty in the 1800s, Extreme Homesickness

I Am a Star: Child of the Holocaust

Author: Inge Auerbacher
Illustrator: Israel Bernbaum
Year: 1986
Publisher: Prentice-Hall Books for Young Readers
Pages: 87
Reading Level: Intermediate (ages 9-12)

Awards: Merit of Educational Distinction by the International Center for Holocaust Studies of the B’nai Brith Anti-Defamation League.

Genre: Non-Fiction/Memoir
Location: Jebenhausen, Germany; Terezin Concentration Camp, Czechoslovakia
Time Period: Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1939-May 8, 1945 (World War II)

Book Summary: Tells the story of Inge Auerbacher and her family, German Jews who were transferred to the Terezin Concentration Camp in Czechoslovakia and lived there for three years until they were liberated by the Soviets. Ms. Auerbacher was one of only thirteen survivors from her transport of about 1200 people who were sent to Terezin, and was one of the few surviving children. Discusses the history of World War II and Anti-Semitism. Also inclues a timeline, poetry written by the author, photographs and pictures, and suggested books for further reading.

Comments: Auerbacher provides a lot of background to the causes of the Holocaust in a way that children will understand it. She doesn't just simply state that the Nazis hated the Jews. Instead, she gives the both the history of Hitler's rise to power, and the even longer history of Anti-Semitism in Europe. She also shares facts about the concentration camps themselves, but she does so in a gentle way that won't be too disturbing to children.

There is a lot of information included in the book, and Auerbacher tries to break this up into manageable segments through various means. I appreciated the photographs, which mainly included pictures of the people Auerbacher talks about in the book. Less helpful were the poems and drawings placed sporadically throughout the book. The poems give little snippets of concentration camp life that will be useful to children, but these snippets are not discussed in the actual narrative. For example, a poem about finding and hiding potatoes is inserted without any comment made about this incident in the text. Sometimes the poems are placed in such a way as to interrupt the text, making it hard to keep track of what is going on.

Themes: World War II, Anti-Semitism, Concentration Camps, Holocaust

Red Flags: Light discussion of the purpose of Auschwitz and the horrors of concentration camps.