Tag Archives: Children’s book reviews
Bedtime Stories: The Amulet of Samarkand
Post by Mark T. Locker.
The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book One: The Amulet of Samarakand by Jonathan Stroud.
So this is a book I have been kind of wanting to read for a very long time. I’m a big fan of the author; I’ve reviewed his Lockwood & Co. books here in the past. This series of books, told partly from the perspective of a snarky demon by the name of Bartimaeus, has been sitting on my shelf for a dozen years. The only thing stopping me from diving into it? The footnotes. There were SO many footnotes! It was hard for me to constantly tear my attention from the story to read the bits of supplementary information offered after the asterisk. What finally did it for me was getting the book in audio format. The narrator adds the footnotes in such a seamless way that you can hardly tell he’s reading from the bottom of the page. It works. And it’s a great story.
As a young child, Nathaniel in sold to the passably accomplished wizard Arthur Underwood, brought up to be his protégé. Treated poorly by his new master and humiliated by his colleagues from the Ministry, Nathaniel takes solace in learning. Despite his Master’s belief, Nathaniel is a brilliant wizard and by the age of twelve has a great deal of advanced knowledge under his belt. All of which he channels into seeking vengeance against Simon Lovelace, a nasty but powerful wizard who humiliated Nathaniel in front of several wizards. So Nathaniel summons a djinni, a moderately powerful demon named Bartimaeus, and charges him to steal a valuable amulet from Lovelace.
Told from the point-of-view of the demon, who has a wonderfully wicked sense of humor, the story sets up a world of magic and monsters in modern-day London. Once you get past the footnotes, the story is fun, unique, and captivating. Great to read aloud to older kids or to read in bed on your own.
Bedtime Stories: Maude
Post by Mark T. Locker.
Maude: The Not-So-Noticeable Shrimpton by Lauren Child. Illustrated by Trisha Krauss.
Maude Shrimpton comes from a large family. And not only is her family large, they all absolutely ADORE being different and standing out. Mother wears outrageous outfits like live peacock hats. Father has an outrageously long, curly mustache. Her siblings all stand out in their own way: beauty, laughter and dance. Maude just kind of blends in. Her family is horrified, and horrified that Maude is okay with it. When her birthday comes around, all she wants is a little goldfish. But that’s not nearly outrageous enough for the Shrimpton family. So they get her a tiger. Perhaps blending in can be better than standing out sometimes.
This beautifully illustrated shout-out to all the kids who like to be low-profile, the wallflowers and the introverts is an unexpected delight with a wickedly funny and unpredictable ending. Lauren Child is perhaps best known for her Charlie and Lola books. If you have read any of these you will know that Lola is anything but a wallflower; her stubborn, imaginative and flighty personality is the opposite of Maude. If you haven’t read Charlie and Lola, you are really missing out.
Maude and her celebration of the quiet child is a refreshing read, though if you are worried about the suggestion of getting eaten by a tiger, then perhaps you should stick with Charlie and Lola.
Bedtime Stories: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
Post by Mark T. Locker.
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi and Ron Barrett.
There are a surprising number of picture books that have been adapted into movies, with varying levels of success. We’ve seen a few Dr. Seuss books: The Lorax; Cat in the Hat; How the Grinch Stole Christmas. There is the unlikely adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are. And we got not one, but two Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs movies. (Full disclosure: I’ve only seen the second one.) And from what I saw of it, it wasn’t that bad. But nothing will touch the original book of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs with its sparingly colored pen-and-ink images of massive doughnuts and orange juice rain.
I got this book from my grandfather when I was little and it instantly became a favorite. The story revolves around a wacky grandfather (not too unlike my own) telling the kids the story of the land of Chewandswallow where food falls from the sky. What a wonderful place it was! Spaghetti rains down for dinner, doughnuts roll in in the morning. But something goes awry. First the food is gross, overcooked, and bad. Then it becomes downright dangerous. Pancakes the size of a city block! Scary!
The pictures are forever emblazoned on my brain. Especially the pale faced kids eating their weight in cream cheese and jelly sandwiches.
This is a fun book and just writing the review makes me eager to go reread it to my son. It makes me a little hungry too.
Bedtime Stories: Bone Gap
Post by Mark T. Locker.
Bone Gap by Laura Ruby.
Well, the ALA midwinter session came and went, and as we all know (at least those of us involved in libraries know) that means the announcement of several major awards for excellence in American children’s literature. The Newbery, The Coretta Scott King award, the Caldecott and the Printz to name a few.
I am always particularly interested in the Printz award, given for the best in new young adult novels written by Americans. Always thought-provoking and often challenging, this year is no disappointment. Laura Ruby has written a few books before winning the Printz for Bone Gap. But her earlier novels such as The Wall and the Wing are for younger readers and somewhat straighforward magical reading. Bone Gap is gritty, full of aches and love and turmoil and hope, much like real life. It’s also full of magic which, sadly, is less like real life.
Finn and Sean O’Sullivan are left to their own devices when their mother leaves her family in Bone Gap, Illinois for an orthodontist in Oregon who dislikes children. As teens, she expects they can look after themselves. Then one day, Roza shows up, injured, scared, and hiding in their barn. Only a year or two older than Sean, they take her in and give her the apartment in their home. When she suddenly vanishes, everyone in the small town believes she just decided to leave. But Finn knows what happened. He knows she was taken, but nobody believes him.
It’s difficult to summarize this book. It manages to tell the story in several timelines and from two different points of views, all without getting confusing or muddled. We learn how Roza came to America from Poland and we learn what happened when she shows up in the barn, but not necessarily in that order.
Dealing with teenage and adult subject matter, this book is better suited to the high school or adult audience but is not a story to be missed. Both disturbing and magical and lovely, the Printz Award has chosen a great novel to bear its medal.
Bedtime Stories: The Spiderwick Chronicles
Post by Mark T. Locker.
The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi.
I have been trying for ages to get my seven-year-old to embrace chapter books. Finding something that has short chapters, pleasantly distracting pictures and an exciting—but not too exciting—plot has been a challenge. For a while I had suspected that the children’s fantasy series The Spiderwick Chronicles would appeal to his love of magical creatures as well as his short attention span. When I finally remembered to put a hold on one of the books, I felt hopeful. We read the first couple chapters of The Field Guide together, hoping if I could get him interested in the first of the five novels that the rest would follow on its own. And it worked! Although he complained a couple times during his required reading time, those complaints became fewer and fewer. He is now on the third book and he read well beyond the 20 minutes and didn’t once ask how much time had elapse.
This was a huge victory, but I’ll never let him know. A quick summary of the first book:
Due to their mother’s financial problems, nine-year-old twins Jared and Simon and their thirteen-year-old-sister Mallory are forced to move into an old abandoned family estate in Maine called Spiderwick Estate. When he climbs in the old dumbwaiter, Jared discovers a secret library on the second floor with a poem loaded with clues which eventually lead him to a field guide to fantastical creatures. They discover that a whole world of faerie folk, brownies, sprites, goblins, exist and in their hands is the secret to finding and understanding them.
Great bedtime read for kids. Exciting without getting scary, clever and interesting, and written by two fantastic children’s/young adult authors.
