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Nine Days: American High School Student Experience Human Rights Abuse in China, A Novel by Fred Hiatt

Editor — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:53:34 +0000

A fast-paced contemporary thriller in the vein of James Patterson and Anthony Horowitz set against the bustling backdrop of Hong Kong, Vietnam, and the border of China. This heart-pounding adventure takes place as two teens, an American teenage boy and his friend, a Chinese girl from his Washington, DC-area high school, must find her father who has been kidnapped—and they only have nine days.

Although the characters in the novel are fictionalized, they are based on a real Chinese family who were part of the Chinese Democracy Movement and inspired this story.

About Fred Hiatt

FRED HIATT is the editorial page editor of The Washington Post. He writes editorials for the newspaper as well as a biweekly column.

Editorial Review

Tenth-graders Ethan and Ti-Anna gradually become closer friends and partner investigators when Ti-Anna’s father disappears. Known for his activism on behalf of Chinese dissidents, he loses contact with his family on a trip to Hong Kong. Ethan and Ti-Anna engineer a trip to Asia to investigate, which ultimately puts the initially retiring Ti-Anna into peril. It is a dangerous journey, full of mysterious threats, that requires them each to trust and support the other. It’s not a romance at all, though there are some overtones of that: Front and center is the conundrum of how they will track someone who doesn’t want to be tracked, in a strange city and with the government as their opponent. There’s a nice vibe to the friendship between the two, which is supported by the assurance that all is ultimately well; Ethan states at the beginning that the account he narrates is being written for a judge. Hiatt neatly folds in information and background on 20th-century Chinese history and current events. Few mysteries combine cultural diversity, politics and physical danger with a lighthearted friendship. – Kirkus Reviews

Book World: In Fred Hiatt’s ‘Nine Days,’ 2 teens risk their lives to rescue a Chinese dissident

The Washington Post Book Review – April 5, 2013 (Excerpt)

In Fred Hiatt’s new young-adult novel, “Nine Days,” a high school junior steals his mother’s credit card and runs away from home with a girl. The stunt may get him grounded until his 30th birthday, but this isn’t “Romeo and Juliet” redux. Ethan Wynkoop and his friend, Ti-Anna, are frantically trying to find Ti-Anna’s father, an exiled Chinese activist. When the two set off for Hong Kong, where he was last seen, they’re risking their lives — and an international incident.

Enlisting adults for help doesn’t occur to either teen: Ti-Anna’s mother is reeling from her husband’s disappearance, and Ethan, who feels like an afterthought to his absent-minded-professor parents, is used to taking care of himself.

But the odds are not even remotely in their favor. The two teenagers have no idea where to start looking, Ethan doesn’t speak Chinese and they’re not even sure if the Chinese government has Ti-Anna’s dad. Then, their first night in Hong Kong, someone searches their room, and it becomes apparent that Ti-Anna may also be in danger. [Read the full article...]

A Real-Life Fight For Freedom In ‘Nine Days’

NPR Book Review – April 17, 2013 (Excerpt)

Two high-school sophomores — Ethan Wynkoop and Ti-Anna Chen — sneak away from their homes in suburban Washington, D.C., and fly to Hong Kong. They’re searching for Ti-Anna’s father, a Chinese emigre and dissident who believes that China is just a spark away from democratic revolution.

He’s gone missing after landing in Hong Kong, and Ti-Anna is determined to find out what happened. Ti-Anna is based on a real person, and her story is now part of a new young-adult novel — a thriller — by Fred Hiatt, who also holds down a day job as editorial page editor of The Washington Post.

Fred Hiatt and Ti-Anna Wang, the real young woman behind the story, stopped by to chat with NPR’s Melissa Block. [Read the full article...]

Courage Has No Color, The True Story of the Triple Nickles: America’s First Black Paratroopers by Tanya Lee Stone

Editor — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 11:58:03 +0000

They became America’s first black paratroopers. Why was their story never told? Sibert Medalist Tanya Lee Stone reveals the history of the Triple Nickles during World War II.

World War II is raging, and thousands of American soldiers are fighting overseas against the injustices brought on by Hitler. Back on the home front, the injustice of discrimination against African Americans plays out as much on Main Street as in the military. Enlisted black men are segregated from white soldiers and regularly relegated to service duties. At Fort Benning, Georgia, First Sergeant Walter Morris’s men serve as guards at The Parachute School, while the white soldiers prepare to be paratroopers. Morris knows that for his men to be treated like soldiers, they have to train and act like them, but would the military elite and politicians recognize the potential of these men as well as their passion for serving their country? Tanya Lee Stone examines the role of African Americans in the military through the history of the Triple Nickles, America’s first black paratroopers, who fought in a little-known attack on the American West by the Japanese. The 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, in the words of Morris, “proved that the color of a man had nothing to do with his ability.”

About Tanya Lee Stone

Tanya Lee Stone is the Robert F. Sibert Award–winning author of Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream. This new book was seven years in the making, as she did extensive original research and tracked down archival photos. Tanya Lee Stone lives in Vermont.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

While white American soldiers battled Hitler’s tyranny overseas, African-Americans who enlisted to fight for their country faced the tyranny of racial discrimination on the homefront. Segregated from white soldiers and relegated to service duties and menial tasks, enlisted black men faced what Ashley Bryan calls in the foreword “the racism that was our daily fare at the time.” When 1st Sgt. Walter Morris, whose men served as guards at The Parachute School at Fort Benning, saw white soldiers training to be paratroopers, he knew his men would have to train and act like them to be treated like soldiers. Daring initiative and leadership led to the creation of the “Triple Nickles.” Defying the deeply ingrained stereotypes of the time, the Triple Nickles proved themselves as capable and tough as any white soldiers, but they were never used in combat, serving instead as smoke jumpers extinguishing Japanese-ignited forest fires in the Pacific Northwest. Stone’s richly layered narrative explores the cultural and institutional prejudices of the time as well as the history of African-Americans in the military. Her interviews with veterans of the unit provide groundbreaking insight. Among the archival illustrations in this handsomely designed book are drawings Bryan created while he served in World War II. – Kirkus Reviews

‘Courage Has No Color,’ by Tanya Lee Stone

The Washington Post Book Review – February 5, 2013 (Excerpt)

Sometimes history is what didn’t happen — and why. Prior to her new book about African American paratroopers who didn’t get the chance to fight overseas during World War II, Tanya Lee Stone wrote about the “Mercury 13” female pilots whose training to become astronauts was cut short in the 1960s. Like “Almost Astronauts,” “Courage Has No Color” movingly demonstrates that opportunity is the first prerequisite for great achievement. Stone opens her new book with what it felt like to be a paratrooper — the thrill and the fright of jumping out of an airplane, ready for battle. She proceeds to describe the many challenges that a group of black soldiers had to overcome to get to that point, including being relegated to service duties and segregated facilities. [Read the full article...]

My Brother’s Book, The Last Finished Work by Maurice Sendak

Editor — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 11:57:11 +0000

Fifty years after Where the Wild Things Are was published comes the last book Maurice Sendak completed before his death in May 2012, My Brother’s Book. With influences from Shakespeare and William Blake, Sendak pays homage to his late brother, Jack, whom he credited for his passion for writing and drawing.

Pairing Sendak’s poignant poetry with his exquisite and dramatic artwork, this book redefines what mature readers expect from Maurice Sendak while continuing the lasting legacy he created over his long, illustrious career. Sendak’s tribute to his brother is an expression of both grief and love and will resonate with his lifelong fans who may have read his children’s books and will be ecstatic to discover something for them now. Pulitzer Prize–winning literary critic and Shakespearean scholar Stephen Greenblatt contributes a moving introduction.

About Maurice Sendak

In addition to Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak’s books include Kenny’s Window, Very Far Away, The Sign on Rosie’s Door, Nutshell Library (consisting of Chicken Soup with Rice, Alligators All Around, One Was Johnny, and Pierre), Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life, In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy, and Bumble-Ardy.

He received the 1964 Caldecott Medal for Where the Wild Things Are; the 1970 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration; the 1983 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, given by the American Library Association in recognition of his entire body of work; and a 1996 National Medal of Arts in recognition of his contribution to the arts in America. In 2003, he received the first Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, an international prize for children’s literature established by the Swedish government.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

As vivid and surreal as a dream, the narrative begins with the separation of Jack—catapulted to “continents of ice” where “[h]is poor nose froze”—and Guy, who lands “[o]n soft Bohemia” to be consumed by a hulking bear after posing his brother’s fate as a “sad riddle.” “Diving through time so vast—sweeping past paradise,” Guy emerges at last into a mystical springtime where he finds Jack entwined in roots and “veiled blossoms.” Guy bites Jack’s nose “to be sure” and hearing his brother’s sighed “Just lost—when I am saved!” enfolds him tenderly, whispering “Good night / And you will dream of me.” In the small, loosely brushed paintings on each facing page, he depicts the brothers, reminiscent of William Blake’s diaphanously gowned figures. Befitting the surreal textual imagery, they float in twisted postures amid stars and organic billows of moonlit clouds and landscape or lie together beneath canopies of greenery. The literary references (to Shakespeare, Keats, Emily Dickinson and others) may escape many, but they are secondary to the book’s impact. – Kirkus Reviews

Sendak’s ‘Brother’s Book’: An Elegy, A Farewell

NPR Book Review – February 4, 2013 (Excerpt)

Maurice Sendak, one of America’s most beloved children’s book authors, evocatively captured both the wonders and fears of childhood. His books, includingWhere the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen andOutside Over There, revolutionized picture books by adding danger and darkness to the genre.

Over the course of his life, Sendak wrote and illustrated more than a dozen widely acclaimed books and illustrated almost 80 more. And although he died last May at 83, Sendak still has one more volume on the way.

My Brother’s Book was written as a tribute to Sendak’s older brother, Jack, who died 18 years ago. Published posthumously, it pairs a meditative poem with a dreamscape of watercolors; in it, two brothers in a fantastic world confront separation, longing and reunion.

While the book looks backward toward Jack’s death, it was written so close to the end of Sendak’s own life that, for those who knew him, it has taken on a double meaning. The playwright Tony Kushner, who was a close friend of Sendak’s, says, “I really feel that the book is a goodbye from him to everybody who loved him — which was a lot of people.”

Kushner joins NPR’s Renee Montagne to talk about Sendak’s elegiac last work, his artistic heroes and why his characters were so often in danger of being devoured. [Read the full article...]

A Farewell, Whispered and Roared - ‘My Brother’s Book,’ by Maurice Sendak

The New York Times Book Review – February 14, 2013 (Excerpt)

Maurice Sendak (1928-2012) cultivated an image as a curmudgeon. “I’m not Hans Christian Andersen,” he told Bill Moyers. “No one’s going to make a statue in the park with a lot of scrambling kids climbing up me. I won’t have it.”

Sendak had a particularly good, cranky run in the last year of his life. He appeared on “The Colbert Report,”ripping the current crop of children’s books as “abysmal.” He was interviewed by Emma Brockes in The Believer magazine, and he declared about e-books: “I hate them. It’s like making believe there’s another kind of sex. There isn’t another kind of sex.”

He was a hot mensch.

Anyone who’s spent time with Sendak’s best books — “Where the Wild Things Are,” “In the Night Kitchen” and “Nutshell Library” among them — knows that this querulousness was the salt crust on a deep and complicated well of feeling. He was also the man who said: “I cry a lot because I miss people. They die, and I can’t stop them. They leave me, and I love them more.” [Read the full article...]

The One and Only Ivan, A Tale of a Gorilla’s Renewed Life by Katherine Applegate

Editor — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 11:50:10 +0000

Ivan is an easygoing gorilla. Living at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, he has grown accustomed to humans watching him through the glass walls of his domain. He rarely misses his life in the jungle. In fact, he hardly ever thinks about it at all.

Instead, Ivan thinks about TV shows he’s seen and about his friends Stella, an elderly elephant, and Bob, a stray dog. But mostly Ivan thinks about art and how to capture the taste of a mango or the sound of leaves with color and a well-placed line.

Then he meets Ruby, a baby elephant taken from her family, and she makes Ivan see their home—and his own art—through new eyes. When Ruby arrives, change comes with her, and it’s up to Ivan to make it a change for the better.

Katherine Applegate blends humor and poignancy to create Ivan’s unforgettable first-person narration in a story of friendship, art, and hope.

About Katherine Applegate

Katherine Applegate’s many books include the Roscoe Riley Rules chapter book series, the picture book The Buffalo Storm, and the award-winning novel Home of the Brave. With her husband, Michael Grant, she wrote the hugely popular series Animorphs, which has sold more than 35 million copies worldwide.

Katherine was inspired to write The One and Only Ivan after reading about the true story of a captive gorilla known as Ivan, the Shopping Mall Gorilla. The real Ivan lived alone in a tiny cage for twenty-seven years at a shopping mall before being moved to Zoo Atlanta after a public outcry. He is now a beloved celebrity at the zoo, which houses the nation’s largest collection of western lowland gorillas. Ivan is well known for his paintings, which he “signs” with a thumb-print.

Katherine lives in California with her husband and two children.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

Living in a “domain” of glass, metal and cement at the Big Top Mall, Ivan sometimes forgets whether to act like a gorilla or a human—except Ivan does not think much of humans. He describes their behavior as frantic, whereas he is a peaceful artist. Fittingly, Ivan narrates his tale in short, image-rich sentences and acute, sometimes humorous, observations that are all the more heartbreaking for their simple delivery. His sorrow is palpable, but he stoically endures the cruelty of humans until Ruby the baby elephant is abused. In a pivotal scene, Ivan finally admits his domain is a cage, and rather than let Ruby live and die in grim circumstances, he promises to save her. In order to express his plea in a painting, Ivan must bravely face buried memories of the lush jungle, his family and their brutal murder, which is recounted in a brief, powerful chapter sure to arouse readers’ passions. In a compelling ending, the more challenging question Applegate poses is whether or not Ivan will remember what it was like to be a gorilla. Spot art captures poignant moments throughout. – Kirkus Reviews

Tale of Gorilla’s Renewed Life Wins Newbery Award

The New York Times Art Beat – January 28, 2013 (Excerpt)

“The One and Only Ivan,” the story of a silverback gorilla who makes a new life for himself after being moved from a tiny cage in a mall to a zoo, won the John Newbery Medal on Monday for the year’s outstanding contribution to children’s literature.

The book, written by Katherine Applegate, a prolific author of children’s books, was inspired by the real-life tale of a gorilla in Tacoma, Wash., named Ivan. After being kept alone in a cage at a mall for 27 years, he became a celebrity after being placed with a large group of gorillas in the Atlanta zoo, where he made paintings and signed them with a thumbprint.

The book, published by HarperCollins Children’s Books, moves beyond the facts to imagine Ivan’s thoughts in his solitary cage and then as he learns more about life and his peers in Atlanta. [Read the full article...]

Unspoken: A Story From the Underground Railroad by Henry Cole

Editor — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 11:12:12 +0000

A young girl’s courage is tested in this haunting, wordless story.

When a farm girl discovers a runaway slave hiding in the barn, she is at once startled and frightened.

But the stranger’s fearful eyes weigh upon her conscience, and she must make a difficult choice. Will she have the courage to help him?

Unspoken gifts of humanity unite the girl and the runaway as they each face a journey: one following the North Star, the other following her heart.

Henry Cole’s unusual and original rendering of the Underground Railroad speaks directly to our deepest sense of compassion.

About Henry Cole

HENRY COLE was born on a dairy farm near Purcellville, Virginia, and was an adored elementary-school science teacher for 16 years. He has since illustrated over 80 popular picture books, including the multimillion-selling Moose series and other bestsellers. Mr. Cole has always loved art and science, which has made him a keen observer of details in nature. He now lives in both Florida and Virginia.

Editorial Review

Drawn in monochrome pencil on rough-textured paper, the broad, full-page and full-spread rural scenes give the encounter a shadowy, atmospheric setting. Going about her chores after watching a detachment of mounted soldiers beneath a Confederate flag trot by, the child is startled and fearful to realize that someone is hiding in a pile of cornstalks in the storehouse. Rather than mention this to the (seemingly) oblivious adults in her extended family or, later, to the hunters who come by with a reward poster, she courageously ventures out by herself, carrying small gifts of food. Never seen beyond a glimpse of an eye amid the leaves, the fugitive at last departs as silently as he (or she) came—leaving a corn doll in return for the girl’s kindness. In a ruminative afterword, Cole reflects on his Virginia family’s own connections to the war and, though silent about the signal quilt he hangs on the farmyard’s fence in the illustrations, explains the significance of the Big Dipper visible in the nighttime sky. – Kirkus Reviews

‘Unspoken,’ by Henry Cole

The Washington Post Book Review – January 1, 2013 (Excerpt)

Eyes alone speak volumes in this wordless picture book. On the opening pages, a young farm girl leading a cow down a country lane turns her head to stare at a string of Confederate soldiers passing by on horseback. Later, gathering potatoes in the shed, she is startled to see a single eye peering out from between stalks of corn piled in a dim corner. At dinner that night, she eyes her own meal, quietly wraps a biscuit in a checked napkin, and delivers it to the shed. That’s the first of many gifts — a slice of pie, a square of cornbread, a drumstick — always concealed in the same square of cloth. Eventually, two roughly attired men show up holding rifles and a poster that silently shouts “WANTED! ESCAPED! REWARD!” The whites of our heroine’s eyes catch the light as she peers out from her hiding place beneath the stairs. Henry Cole’s meticulously detailed drawings created from hundreds and hundreds of individual pencil strokes evoke the rough texture of hand-hewn logs, hand-spun cloth and hand-tilled soil, while the sepia-tone backdrops recall 19th-century daguerreotypes. [Read the full article...]

Navigating Early, A Wilderness Journey Through Guilt and Grief by Clare Vanderpool

Editor — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 12:23:22 +0000

At the end of World War II, Jack Baker, a landlocked Kansas boy, is suddenly uprooted after his mother’s death and placed in a boy’s boarding school in Maine. There, Jack encounters Early Auden, the strangest of boys, who reads the number pi as a story and collects clippings about the sightings of a great black bear in the nearby mountains. Newcomer Jack feels lost yet can’t help being drawn to Early, who won’t believe what everyone accepts to be the truth about the Great Appalachian Bear, Timber Rattlesnakes, and the legendary school hero known as The Fish, who never returned from the war. When the boys find themselves unexpectedly alone at school, they embark on a quest on the Appalachian Trail in search of the great black bear. But what they are searching for is sometimes different from what they find. They will meet truly strange characters, each of whom figures into the pi story Early weaves as they travel, while discovering things they never realized about themselves and others in their lives.

About Clare Vanderpool

CLARE VANDERPOOL’s debut novel, Moon Over Manifest, won the 2011 Newbery Medal for the most distinguished contribution to children’s literature. This second novel will continue to astound readers with Clare’s incredible writing prowess.

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Editorial Review

Thirteen-year-old Jack enters boarding school in Maine after his mother’s death at the end of World War II. He quickly befriends Early Auden, a savant whose extraordinary facility with numbers allows him to “read” a story about “Pi” from the infinite series of digits that follow 3.14. Jack accompanies Early in one of the school crew team’s rowing boats on what Jack believes is his friend’s fruitless quest to find a great bear allegedly roaming the wilderness—and Early’s brother, a legendary figure reportedly killed in battle. En route, Early spins out Pi’s evolving saga, and the boys encounter memorable individuals and adventures that uncannily parallel those in the stories. Vanderpool ties all these details, characters, and Jack’s growing maturity and self-awareness together masterfully and poignantly, though humor and excitement leaven the weighty issues the author and Jack frequently pose. Some exploits may strain credulity; Jack’s self-awareness often seems beyond his years, and there are coincidences that may seem too convenient. It’s all of a piece with Vanderpool’s craftsmanship. Her tapestry is woven and finished off seamlessly. The ending is very moving, and there’s a lovely, last-page surprise that Jack doesn’t know but that readers will have been tipped off about. – Kirkus Reviews

‘Navigating Early,’ by Clare Vanderpool

The Washington Post Book Review – January 1, 2013 (Excerpt)

Early Auden is the “strangest of boys,” a savant who sweeps 13-year-old Jack Baker onto the Kennebec River and into an adventure rife with “pirates, a volcano, a great white whale, a hundred-year-old woman, a lost hero, a hidden cave, a great Appalachian bear, and a timber rattlesnake.” For Early, the number pi tells an ongoing story that somehow relates to the fate of his older brother, Fisher, a soldier reportedly killed in World War II. Pi’s story is interspersed with Jack’s first-person narrative and guides Early, for whom numbers have “color and landscape, texture and voice,” on his quest for his brother. Initially, Jack, who is reeling from the sudden death of his mother, just goes along with his odd friend. But the wilderness journey becomes a way through Jack’s guilt and grief, too, as he begins to recall small things — his mom’s special teacup and funny sayings, his father’s ring — and feel more connected with the world. [Read the full article...]

Curse of the Thirteenth Fey: The True Tale of Sleeping Beauty by Jane Yolen

Editor — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 11:55:58 +0000

A reimagining of Sleeping Beauty from a master storyteller

Gorse is the thirteenth and youngest in a family of fairies tied to the evil king’s land and made to do his bidding. Because of an oath made to the king’s great-great-ever-so-many-times-great-grandfather, if they try to leave or disobey the royals, they will burst into a thousand stars.

When accident-prone Gorse falls ill just as the family is bid to bless the new princess, a fairytale starts to unfold. Sick as she is, Gorse races to the castle with the last piece of magic the family has left–a piece of the Thread of Life. But that is when accident, mayhem, and magic combine to drive Gorse’s story into the unthinkable, threatening the baby, the kingdom, and all.

With her trademark depth, grace, and humor, Jane Yolen tells readers the “true” story of the fairy who cursed Sleeping Beauty.

About Jane Yolen

Jane Yolen has been called the Hans Christian Andersen of American storytellers. She’s written more than 300 books and has won numerous awards for her writing. She lives in Hatfield, Massachusetts, and Saint Andrews, Scotland.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

Yolen takes off from a handful of short stories she published in the mid-1980s and engages readers with the voice of Gorse, the 13th fey of the title, youngest child of her Irish Elven father and her mother, who is of the Shouting Fey. Despite her heritage, magic—using it or even being around it—always makes Gorse ill. She is sick when the rest of the family is called to the fateful christening, and her hurrying, late, with a magic spindle for a gift lands her down a hole—with allusions to both Alice’s rabbit hole and a wormhole—with a prince and his loyal companion. These two have been imprisoned together in caves inhabited by a furry and smelly lot of creatures for generations. The relationship between Grey and Orybon is silken with loyalty and betrayal, and Yolen studies it carefully through Gorse’s eyes. They expect Gorse to rid them of the curse that keeps them imprisoned, and she does, although not in the way anyone expects. The pages are peppered with subtle references to everything from Lord of the Rings to Emily Dickinson, and Gorse grows in both cleverness and thoughtfulness as the story unwinds. – Kirkus Reviews

Beauty, brains in Jane Yolen’s ‘Curse of the Thirteenth Fey’

The Los Angeles Times Book Review – December 27, 2012 (Excerpt)

We love fairy tales. Every culture offers them up: Scandinavians, Nigerians, Indonesians. Their commonality — and the constant on-passing from parent to child — attests to their endurance. It’s as though they are somehow encoded in our DNA.

Theories abound about their importance in our social evolution: Tales of abandonment, death and monstrous behavior allow children to deal with their fears in an age-appropriate manner. The horror is remote, symbolic; the ritual of reading, sacred.

In the last 50 or so years, fairy tales such as “Sleeping Beauty” have been turned on their ear. The sleeping princess became part of a tourist attraction in a “Fractured Fairy Tales” segment of “Rocky and Bullwinkle.” Rather than rhapsodize about her beauty, the prince announces, to no one in particular: “Asleep she’s a gold mine!” She was imagined as a lust object of sorts in the musical “Into the Woods.” In the second act, Rapunzel’s prince and his brother confess their yearnings for two other beautiful women: Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. [Read the full article...]

The Pushcart War, War and Peace on the Streets of New York by Jean Merrill

Editor — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:44:04 +0000

The pushcarts have declared war! New York City’s streets are clogged with huge, rude trucks that park where they want, hold up traffic, and bulldoze into anything that is in their way, and the pushcart peddlers are determined to get rid of them. But the trucks are just as determined to get rid of the pushcarts, and chaos results in the city.

The pushcarts have come up with a brilliant strategy that will surely let the hot air out of their enemies. The secret weapon–a peashooter armed with a pin; the target–the vulnerable truck tires. Once the source of the flat tires is discovered, the children of the city joyfully join in with their own pin peashooters. The pushcarts have won one battle, but can they win the war against a corrupt mayor who taxes the pins and prohibits the sale of dried peas?

About Jean Merrill

Jean Merrill (January 27, 1923 – August 2, 2012) was an American author of children’s books and editor, best known for The Pushcart War, originally published in 1964. She died from cancer at her home in Randolph, Vermont, in 2012, aged 89.

War Writ Small: Of Pushcarts And Peashooters

NPR Book Review – December 19, 2012 (Excerpt)

Stealing my 9-year-old nephew’s copy of The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill was the best thing I did last summer. I was his age the first time I read it, and twice his age the last time I went back to it. I’m twice that old again now, but as soon as I dove into this intimate, majestic tale of war writ small — of a battle between the pushcart peddlers and the truckers of New York City — I realized how timeless, and how deeply a part of me, the story was.

Before long, I was tearing up as I anticipated events to come — not so much the major plot points as the masterful asides and grace notes that make the story so rich. I finished that same evening — a feat my nephew found stunning — and I haven’t stopped thinking about the book since.

The Pushcart War is presented as a history of a conflict that has not yet taken place; in each edition of the book, the date on which the hostilities commenced is nudged forward. I remember the power of that effect vividly from my first reading; it felt like standing with one foot in the past and one in the future, and it was strange and wonderful. [Read the full article...]

Will Sparrow’s Road, A Story of Elizabethan England by Karen Cushman

Editor — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 14:05:06 +0000

In his thirteenth year, Will Sparrow, liar and thief, becomes a runaway. On the road, he encounters a series of con artists—a pickpocket, a tooth puller, a pig trainer, a conjurer—and learns that others are more adept than he at lying and thieving. Then he reluctantly joins a traveling troupe of “oddities,” including a dwarf and a cat-faced girl, holding himself apart from the “monsters” and resolving to be on guard against further deceptions. At last Will is forced to understand that appearances are misleading and that he has been his own worst deceiver. The rowdy world of market fairs in Elizabethan England is the colorful backdrop for Newbery medalist Cushman’s new comic masterpiece.

About Karen Cushman

Karen Cushman’s acclaimed historical novels include Catherine, Called Birdy, a Newbery Honor winner, and The Midwife’s Apprentice, which received the Newbery Medal. She lives on Vashon Island in Washington State. Her website is www.karencushmanbooks.com.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

His mother deserted him, his father sold him to an innkeeper for his fill of ale and the innkeeper is about to sell him for a chimney sweep just for stealing a pie to feed his empty stomach. Will, a self-proclaimed liar and thief, is also bold and quick-witted and so runs away. On the road, he encounters a thief, a cheating dentist, an illusionist, a blind juggler, the smart pig and her owner and Master Tidball, a purveyor of oddities. Traveling with the last from fair to fair, he slowly befriends one of those oddities, a girl who is advertised as a cat. (She has hypertrichosis, a genetic disorder causing facial hair, as Cushman explains in her note.) The ragtag entourage also includes a dwarf. Along the way, readers get a flavor for Elizabethan foods, clothing and song. Cushman, a Newbery Award– and Honor–winning author for her historical novels featuring girls, now presents a boy as her protagonist. She sends him on an inner journey as well as a physical one, allowing him to grow in empathy and to see past people’s physical appearances into their true character. – Kirkus Reviews

In His Own Time - ‘Will Sparrow’s Road,’ by Karen Cushman

The New York Times Book Review – December 14, 2012 (Excerpt)

“Will Sparrow was a liar and a thief, and hungry” begins Karen Cushman’s latest novel. One of her recurring themes is that with enough pluck and mulishness, children will play through the bad hand fate deals them — once they’ve glimpsed a reason to do so. “I care for no one but myself,” the boy starts out saying, “and nothing but my belly!” while stealing a cold rabbit pie. By the end of “Will Sparrow’s Road,” when the boy’s conscience blossoms as he envisions a different life, we will have traveled with him through a lively and amusing parade of the late 16th century and through the hero’s own personal journey.

Each page of “Will Sparrow’s Road” celebrates language and history. Shears sell for a groat; sham lunatics are called Abraham men. Sold by his drunken father, 12-year-old Will runs away from his new innkeeper owner when he threatens to resell him as a chimney sweep. “There always be a market for such,” the innkeeper snarls. “Them don’t last long. They lungs go.” Cushman clearly has fun with this archaic speech, and to maintain the tone, writes her narrative in the same mode as her dialogue. She doesn’t exactly imitate a 16th-century style; instead, she incorporates its rhythms into her own, enabling young readers to decipher meaning from context. “His heart beat like a tambour,” she writes, and “Was the man too codswalloped to follow?” She uses such words as “belike” and “mayhap” as casually as individual characters cry “Certes!” and crowds “Huzzah!” [Read the full article...]

“Who Could That Be at This Hour?” (All the Wrong Questions) by Lemony Snicket

Editor — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 12:11:25 +0000

In a fading town, far from anyone he knew or trusted, a young Lemony Snicket began his apprenticeship in an organization nobody knows about. He started by asking questions that shouldn’t have been on his mind. Now he has written an account that should not be published, in four volumes that shouldn’t be read. This is the first volume.

About Lemony Snicket

Lemony Snicket had an unusual education and a perplexing youth and now endures a despondent adulthood. His previous accounts and research have been collected and published as books, including those in A Series of Unfortunate Events, 13 Words, and The Composer is Dead. This is his first authorized autobiographical work.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

In the basin of a bay drained of seawater, where giant needles extract ink from octopi underground, sits Stain’d-by-the-Sea, the mostly deserted town where 12-year-old Lemony Snicket takes his first case as apprentice to chaperone S. Theodora Markson. They have been hired by Mrs. Murphy Sallis to retrieve a vastly valuable statue of the local legend, the Bombinating Beast, from her neighbors and frenemies the Mallahans. Nothing’s what it seems…well, the adults are mostly nitwits…and Snicket is usually preoccupied with someone he left in the city doing something he should be helping her do. With the help and/or hindrance of girls Moxie and Ellington, can Snicket keep his promises and come close to solving a mystery? Author Snicket (aka Daniel Handler) returns with a tale of fictional-character Snicket’s early years, between his unconventional education and his chronicling of the woes of the Baudelaires. Intact from his earlier series are the gothic wackiness, linguistic play and literary allusions. This first in a series of four is less grim and cynical and more noir and pragmatic than Snicket’s earlier works, but just as much fun. – Kirkus Reviews

Lemony Snicket Dons A Trenchcoat

NPR Book Review – December 10, 2012 (Excerpt)

It’s been more than six years since Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, concluded his enormously popular 13-volume young adult series, A Series of Unfortunate Events.Now Handler has revived the Snicket narrator in his YA novel Who Could That Be at This Hour?

The book is the first of a series — All the Wrong Questions — and a prequel to A Series of Unfortunate Events. It tracks the young Snicket’s adventures during his apprenticeship at the V.F.D., a mysterious organization that readers familiar with the Snicket stories will recognize.

While the Unfortunate Events books play with ideas about gothic literature, All the Wrong Questions explores detective-noir conventions. Handler tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross that initially, he had concerns about writing in a noir style for younger readers, not least because of the central role of the genre’s femme fatale characters and their sexualized personas. But then he had an epiphany that freed him from this worry: In noir, he realized, the detective and thefemme fatale are doing the exact same thing. [Read the full article...]

Beyond Courage: The Untold Story of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust by Doreen Rappaport

Editor — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 12:27:31 +0000

In a stirring chronicle, Doreen Rappaport brings to light the courage of countless Jews who organized to sabotage the Nazis and help other Jews during the Holocaust.

Under the noses of the military, Georges Loinger smuggles thousands of children out of occupied France into Switzerland. In Belgium, three resisters ambush a train, allowing scores of Jews to flee from the cattle cars. In Poland, four brothers lead more than 1,200 ghetto refugees into the forest to build a guerilla force and self-sufficient village. And twelve-year-old Motele Shlayan entertains German officers with his violin moments before setting off a bomb. Through twenty-one meticulously researched accounts — some chronicled in book form for the first time — Doreen Rappaport illuminates the defiance of tens of thousands of Jews across eleven Nazi-occupied countries during World War II. In answer to the genocidal madness that was Hitler’s Holocaust, the only response they could abide was resistance, and their greatest weapons were courage, ingenuity, the will to survive, and the resolve to save others or to die trying.

Extensive end matter includes:
- timeline of important events
- index
- pronunciation guide
- source notes
- maps integrated throughout text

About Doreen Rappaport

Doreen Rappaport is the author of numerous award-winning nonfiction books for young readers. Beyond Courage, her most ambitious project to date, took five years to research and write. She lives in upstate New York.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

Although “[t]he scope and extent of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust cannot possibly be contained in one book,” Rappaport offers an astonishing and inspiring survey. By shining a spotlight on individuals and their involvement in given situations—Kristallnacht, deportations, guerrilla resistance, among others—throughout Europe, she creates intimate personal snapshots of the years of the Nazi occupation. She tells of people who committed acts of destruction as well as those whose resistance was in the simple act of celebrating and maintaining their faith in impossible conditions. Well-known events—the escape from Sobibor, the battle for Warsaw—share space with less-familiar ones. Short biographies introduce readers to those involved, some of whom the author has interviewed. Archival images help readers envision the people and places that are mentioned: partisan forest hideaways, concentration camps, the ovens, barracks, groups of people on their way to death, diagrams of camps and more. – Kirkus Reviews

“Beyond Courage,” by Doreen Rappaport

The Washington Post Book Review – November 20, 2012 (Excerpt)

Doreen Rappaport’s thoughtful, well-researched book explores the sorrows, triumphs and struggles of Jews who fought back against Nazi persecution. Ranging all over Europe, she begins with Kristallnacht in November 1938, when the horror of the Nazi mindset revealed itself in widespread anti-Semitic violence. Once immigration for entire families proved impossible, parents tried to send their children to safety, and the book shows the elaborate forgery and smuggling schemes required to get by German security. Bolstered by period photographs, including those of many individual resisters, Rappaport’s accounts describe quiet rebellions, such as continued religious observance under grim circumstances, as well as dramatic attempted rescues, escapes and retaliatory attacks. [Read the full article...]

Every Day, Imagining Waking up in a Different Body Every Day by David Levithan

Editor — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 12:03:54 +0000

In his New York Times bestselling novel, David Levithan introduces readers to what Entertainment Weekly calls a “wise, wildly unique” love story about A, a teen who wakes up every morning in a different body, living a different life.

Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl.

There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere.

It’s all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone he wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day.

With his new novel, David Levithan, bestselling co-author of Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, has pushed himself to new creative heights. He has written a captivating story that will fascinate readers as they begin to comprehend the complexities of life and love in A’s world, as A and Rhiannon seek to discover if you can truly love someone who is destined to change every day.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

About David Levithan

DAVID LEVITHAN is a children’s book editor in New York City, and the author of several books for young adults, including Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist and Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares (co-authored with Rachel Cohn); Will Grayson, Will Grayson (co-authored with John Green); and Every You, Every Me (with photographs from Jonathan Farmer). He lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Editorial Review

A is a 16-year-old genderless being who drifts from body to body each day, living the life of a new human host of the same age and similar geographic radius for 24 hours. One morning, A wakes up a girl with a splitting hangover; another day he/she wakes up as a teenage boy so overweight he can barely fit into his car. Straight boys, gay girls, teens of different races, body shapes, sizes and genders make up the catalog of A’s outward appearances, but ultimately A’s spirit—or soul—remains the same. One downside of A’s life is that he/she doesn’t have a family, nor is he/she able to make friends. A tries to interfere as little as possible with the lives of the teenagers until the day he/she meets and falls head over heels in love with Rhiannon, an ethereal girl with a jackass boyfriend. A pursues Rhiannon each day in whatever form he/she wakes up in, and Rhiannon learns to recognize A—not by appearance, but by the way he/she looks at her across the room. The two have much to overcome, and A’s shifting physical appearance is only the beginning. Levithan’s self-conscious, analytical style marries perfectly with the plot. His musings on love, longing and human nature knit seamlessly with A’s journey. Readers will devour his trademark poetic wordplay and cadences that feel as fresh as they were when he wroteBoy Meets Boy (2003). – Kirkus Reviews

“Every Day,” by David Levithan

The Washington Post Book Review – November 20, 2012 (Excerpt)

David Levithan has traversed the giddy highs and dismal lows of young love — gay and straight — for a decade in his fiction (“Boy Meets Boy,” “The Lover’s Dictionary”) and collaborations (“Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist” with Rachel Cohn; “Will Grayson, Will Grayson” with John Green). In matters of the heart, teens have certainly taken him to theirs. Levithan’s new YA novel proves to be his most nuanced yet, a tender meditation on identity and romantic love that evolves with surprising grace from a rather odd premise. Each morning for the past 16 years, A, a kind of drifting, non-corporeal consciousness, has awakened in the body of a different person, an existence that A finds both lonely and “remarkably freeing.” [Read the full article...]

Jepp, Who Defied the Stars: A Historical Novel for Young Adults by Katherine Marsh

Editor — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 11:21:34 +0000

Fate:

Is it written in the stars from the moment we are born?

Or is it a bendable thing that we can shape with our own hands?

Jepp of Astraveld needs to know.

He left his countryside home on the empty promise of a stranger, only to become a captive in a luxurious prison: Coudenberg Palace, the royal court of the Spanish Infanta. Nobody warned Jepp that as a court dwarf, daily injustices would become his seemingly unshakable fate. If the humiliations were his alone, perhaps he could endure them; but it breaks Jepp’s heart to see his friend Lia suffer.

After Jepp and Lia attempt a daring escape from the palace, Jepp is imprisoned again, alone in a cage. Now, spirited across Europe in a kidnapper’s carriage, Jepp fears where his unfortunate stars may lead him. But he can’t even begin to imagine the brilliant and eccentric new master—a man devoted to uncovering the secrets of the stars—who awaits him. Or the girl who will help him mend his heart and unearth the long-buried secrets of his past.

Masterfully written, grippingly paced, and inspired by real historical characters, Jepp, Who Defied the Stars is the tale of an extraordinary hero and his inspiring quest to become the master of his own destiny.

About Katherine Marsh

An only child, Katherine Marsh spent a lot of her youth reading, trading stories with her grandmother who had run a bar in New York, and listening to her mother’s frequent astrological predictions. After surviving high school and graduating from Yale, Katherine spent a decade as a magazine journalist, including as a reporter for Rolling Stone and an editor at The New Republic. Her first book, The Night Tourist, won an Edgar Allen Poe Award for mystery writing, and was followed by the sequel The Twilight Prisoner. Katherine lives in Washington D.C. with her husband and two children. Find out more about Katherine at: www.katherinemarsh.com or follow her on Twitter: @MarshKatherine.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

Edgar Award–winning author Marsh (The Twilight Prisoner, 2009, etc.) has written a fast-paced adventure, abundant with period details, that comprises about two years of the diminutive Jepp’s life. Jepp’s account begins at a perilous point in his story—“imprisoned in [a] star-crossed coach, bumping up and down bone-rattling roads”—which leads to an exposition of the events that have brought him to this fate. Eventually his tale moves to a time beyond the hazardous coach journey and on to a satisfying, if overly contrived, ending. The book has three parts, loosely linked to three crucial northern European settings: the rural inn where Jepp was raised by a loving mother; the kingdom of Coudenberg, where he endures the luxurious but humiliating life of a court dwarf and is involved in a horrible tragedy; and the palace of Uraniborg, renowned for astronomical research, where Jepp’s status rises almost miraculously from pet dog to that of a respected scholar as well as a favored suitor for his beloved. – Kirkus Reviews

A Tale Of Fate: From Astrology To Astronomy

NPR Book Review – November 10, 2012 (Excerpt)

When Katherine Marsh was a young girl she was mesmerized by the dwarfs in Diego Velazquez’s masterpieces. Years later, that obsession became the inspiration for her latest novel for young adults, Jepp Who Defied the Stars.

Marsh spoke with weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz about her book, which is rooted in history, yet speckled with fantasy. It carries her readers to the Spanish Netherlands in the late 16th century where the coming-of-age story of Jepp of Astraveld begins. [Read the full article...]

Jester and Magician - ‘Jepp, Who Defied the Stars,’ by Katherine Marsh

The New York Times Book Review – November 9, 2012 (Excerpt)

Self-conscious about your body? Unsure where — or if — you’ll ever fit in? Wondering when people will start treating you like an adult? Katherine Marsh’s “Jepp, Who Defied the Stars” delves into these perennial adolescent challenges while transporting her readers to a tiny island in Denmark in the late 16th century — and without the help of either time machine or wizard. Instead Marsh turns to one of history’s real-life magicians, the brilliant, eccentric astronomer Tycho Brahe, to welcome her readers to his castle-cum-observatory, Uraniborg.

A Danish noble, Brahe lacks the renown of his apprentice, Johannes Kepler, but he made similarly significant contributions to astronomy, especially for a pioneer whose work was unaided by the yet-to-be-invented telescope. Kepler’s discoveries about planetary motion rest on the work of the half-scientist, half-Mad Hatter Brahe, who kept a dipsomaniac moose as a pet, and a dwarf named Jepp as court jester.

In the novel, the fictionalized Jepp travels from his home in Astraveld, a kind of crossroads “claimed by both the Spanish Netherlands and the Protestant North,” to the Infanta Isabella’s palace in Brussels, and then from Brussels on to the “intricate universe” of Uraniborg. There Jepp will be delivered from the status of a dog at Brahe’s feet, dependent on scraps from his master’s dinner, to that of an esteemed scientist in his own right. [Read the full article...]

Under Wildwood: The Wildwood Chronicles, Book II by Colin Meloy

Editor — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 12:17:55 +0000

Ever since Prue McKeel returned home from the Impassable Wilderness after rescuing her brother from the malevolent Dowager Governess, life has been pretty dull. School holds no interest for her, and her new science teacher keeps getting on her case about her dismal test scores and daydreaming in class. Her mind is constantly returning to the verdant groves and sky-tall trees of Wildwood, where her friend Curtis still remains as a bandit-in-training.

But all is not well in that world. A hard winter has come and discord reigns in the wake of the so-called Bicycle Coup. Dark assassins with mysterious motives conspire to settle the scores of an unknown client. A titan of industry employs inmates from his orphanage to work in his machine shop, all the while obsessing over the exploitation of the Impassable Wilderness. Under a growing threat, Prue is drawn back into Wildwood, where she and Curtis will face their greatest challenge yet: to save themselves and the lives of their friends, and to bring unity to a divided country. But in order to do that, they must go under Wildwood.

In Under Wildwood, Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis reveal new dimensions of the epic fantasy-adventure series begun with the critically acclaimed, bestselling Wildwood.

About Colin Meloy

Colin Meloy once wrote Ray Bradbury a letter, informing him that he “considered himself an author too.” He was ten. Since then, Colin has gone on to be the singer and songwriter for the band the Decemberists, where he channels all of his weird ideas into weird songs. With the Wildwood Chronicles, he is now channeling those ideas into novels.

As a kid, Carson Ellis loved exploring the woods, drawing, and nursing wounded animals back to health. As an adult, little has changed—except she is now the acclaimed illustrator of several books for children, including Lemony Snicket’s The Composer is Dead, Dillweed’s Revenge by Florence Parry Heide, and The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart.

Colin and Carson live with their son, Hank, in Portland, Oregon, quite near the Impassable Wilderness.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

Prue is drawn back to Wildwood by herons who rescue her from a trio of terrifying shape-shifters, and there she is reunited with Curtis, who stayed to enjoy the exhilarating life of a bandit-in-training. Attacked at their secret hideout, the bandits vanish. Adrift, Curtis and Septimus the rat join Prue on a quest that takes them under Wildwood, a setting straight out of M.C. Escher with a hint of Hieronymous Bosch. In the Industrial Wastes above, Curtis’ grieving parents search for him after parking his sisters at an orphanage. In this Dickensian institution, children labor to make machine parts, the owner dreams of extending his industrial nightmare into the Impassable Wilderness he sees but can’t reach, and his partner, Desdemona, former B-movie actress in Ukraine, dreams of Hollywood glory. Indulging a free-range imagination, Meloy mulches his verdant wilderness with wildly eclectic cultural references—real (Macbeth, Moby-Dick) and un- (Tax Bracket magazine, Lego replicas of Soviet-era statues). The incomparable Ellis more than rises to the challenge—her sly, wistful, abundant illustrations provide an emotional through line. – Kirkus Reviews

The Wild Adventure Continues In ‘Under Wildwood’

NPR Book Review – October 7, 2012 (Excerpt)

Colin Meloy is best known as the front man for the band the Decemberists. His music is praised for its lyrical quality and the stories the songs tell, so it may not be a surprise to learn Meloy is also a writer.

His newest book is a collaboration with his wife, illustrator Carson Ellis. The book is intended for young readers, the second in a series calledWildwood Chronicles.

The book catches us up with a precocious seventh-grader named Prue McKeel, who lives in Portland, Ore. In the first book, she was on a mission to rescue her baby brother after he was kidnapped by a flock of crows and deposited deep in the Impassable Wilderness — a forest across the Willamette River known to locals as Wildwood.

This time around, she must return to Wildwood — a world of animals, mystics, bandits and more — to save herself, her friend Curtis and even the country. [Read the full article...]

Son, the Long-Awaited Finale to the Giver Quartet by Lois Lowry

Editor — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 09:57:45 +0000

They called her Water Claire. When she washed up on their shore, no one knew that she came from a society where emotions and colors didn’t exist. That she had become a Vessel at age thirteen. That she had carried a Product at age fourteen. That it had been stolen from her body. Claire had a son. But what became of him she never knew. What was his name? Was he even alive?　 She was supposed to forget him, but that was impossible. Now Claire will stop at nothing to find her child, even if it means making an unimaginable sacrifice.

Son thrusts readers once again into the chilling world of the Newbery Medal winning book, The Giver, as well as Gathering Blue and Messenger where a new hero emerges. In this thrilling series finale, the startling and long-awaited conclusion to Lois Lowry’s epic tale culminates in a final clash between good and evil.

About Lois Lowry

Lois Lowry is known for her versatility and invention as a writer. She was born in Hawaii and grew up in New York, Pennsylvania, and Japan. After several years at Brown University, she turned to her family and to writing. She is the author of more than thirty books for young adults, including the popular Anastasia Krupnik series. She has received countless honors, among them the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, the California Young Reader’s Medal, and the Mark Twain Award. She received Newbery Medals for two of her novels, NUMBER THE STARS and THE GIVER. Her first novel, A SUMMER TO DIE, was awarded the International Reading Association’s Children’s Book Award. Ms. Lowry now divides her time between Cambridge and an 1840s farmhouse in Maine. To learn more about Lois Lowry, see her website at www.loislowry.com.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

A designated Birthmother, 14-year-old Claire has no contact with her baby Gabe until she surreptitiously bonds with him in the community Nurturing Center. From detailed descriptions of the sterile, emotionally repressed community, it’s clear Lowry has returned to the time and place of The Giver, and Claire is Jonas’ contemporary. When Jonas flees with Gabe, Claire follows. She later surfaces with amnesia in a remote village beneath a cliff. After living for years with Alys, a childless healer, Claire’s memory returns. Intent on finding Gabe, she single-mindedly scales the cliff, encounters the sinister Trademaster and exchanges her youth for his help in finding her child, now living in the same village as middle-aged Jonas and his wife Kira. Elderly and failing, Claire reveals her identity to Gabe, who must use his unique talent to save the village. Written with powerful, moving simplicity, Claire’s story stands on its own, but as the final volume in this iconic quartet, it holistically reunites characters, reprises provocative socio-political themes, and offers a transcending message of tolerance and hope. – Kirkus Reviews

Book World: ‘Son’ by Lois Lowry concludes series that began with ‘The Giver’

The Washington Post Book Review – September 28, 2012 (Excerpt)

Like a crisp breeze through the election year’s hot rhetorical winds comes “Son,” Lois Lowry’s beautifully wrought political fable that concludes the series she began in “The Giver.” Called “remarkable” and “unforgettable” in a Washington Post review two decades ago, “The Giver” won a Newbery Medal in 1994 and become a classroom staple, the kind of book sure to spark lively discussion. It also consistently ranks among the 25 most frequently challenged books, according to the American Library Association.

“The Giver” starts out pleasantly enough, with a well-organized society going about its business, but the story darkens as the reader realizes the deeper cost of this order: the removal of everything deemed unnecessary or disruptive, including colors, birds, dissenters and a challenging tot named Gabriel, whom the 12-year-old protagonist, Jonas, is determined to save.

The first section of “Son” revisits that place and those characters from the perspective of Gabriel’s teenage mother, and her tender, disquieting story should prove as galvanizing and controversial as its acclaimed predecessor. [Read the full article...]

Review: Lois Lowry’s ‘Son’ a gripping end to ‘The Giver’ series

The Chicago Tribune Book Review – September 30, 2012 (Excerpt)

It’s been 19 years since the publication of Lois Lowry’s pioneering Newbery Medal winner, “The Giver,” which painted a bleak picture of a future society in which color does not exist, love is suppressed and sameness is revered. No one would have guessed that almost two decades later, “dystopian” would be its own genre in the young adult biblioscape, giving rise to blockbuster franchises such as “The Hunger Games,” “Divergent,” “Matched” and now, a follow-up from the author who’s credited with starting it.

“Son” is the Rashomon-style conclusion to “The Giver,” told from the perspective of the young birth mother whose infant was saved in the original book. It’s an intriguing premise that finally resolves the question readers have long pondered: What happened to 13-year-old Jonas and his infant charge, Gabriel, after they fled their well-ordered community? The answer is presented in three sections, or “books,” that read like interlinked individual novellas — each of them taking place in different worlds with characters culled from other titles in what is now a literary quartet that also includes “Messenger” and “Gathering Blue.” [Read the full article...]

The Searcher - ‘Son,’ by Lois Lowry

The New York Times Book Review – October 11, 2012 (Excerpt)

In 1993, when Lois Lowry shocked adult and child sensibilities alike with her Newbery Medal-winning novel “The Giver,” J. K. Rowling had not yet begun scribbling magic words on the back of cafe napkins and Stephenie Meyer had just graduated from her (presumably vampire-free) high school. Suzanne Collins had just sold her first teleplays for the gentle, nonviolent world of children’s television, and “dystopia” was a 50-cent SAT word unlikely to trip off the average sixth-grade tongue.

It’s difficult to imagine, in our post-“Hunger Games” world, how unusual and unsettling it was then for a children’s book to touch on euthanasia, suicide and murder, to couch it all in a bleak vision of political and emotional oppression and to leave its protagonist’s ultimate fate undecided. In many ways, Lowry invented the contemporary young adult dystopian novel. Now, nearly 20 years later — and with a glut of fictional oppressive societies leaving many of us with a bit of dystopia fatigue — she’s returned with a concluding volume that gloriously rebels against the restraints of the very genre she helped to create.[Read the full article...]

The Last Dragonslayer (The Chronicles of Kazam) by Jasper Fforde

Editor — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 09:53:13 +0000

In the good old days, magic was indispensable—it could both save a kingdom and clear a clogged drain. But now magic is fading: drain cleaner is cheaper than a spell, and magic carpets are used for pizza delivery. Fifteen-year-old foundling Jennifer Strange runs Kazam, an employment agency for magicians—but it’s hard to stay in business when magic is drying up. And then the visions start, predicting the death of the world’s last dragon at the hands of an unnamed Dragonslayer. If the visions are true, everything will change for Kazam—and for Jennifer. Because something is coming. Something known as . . . Big Magic.

About Jasper Fforde

JASPER FFORDE, the author of the best-selling Thursday Next mysteries and the Nursery Crime books, has a devoted worldwide following for his highly entertaining and original novels. He lives with his family in Wales.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Exclusive First Read: ‘The Last Dragonslayer’

NPR Book Review – September 12, 2012 (Excerpt)

Fifteen-year-old foundling Jennifer Strange has a lot of responsibility. In a world that’s rapidly losing its magic, she’s the acting director of Kazam Mystical Arts Management, riding herd on a crowd of cranky wizards who’ve been reduced to doing magical odd jobs to make ends meet. But change is afoot in this charming comic adventure for younger readers: Seers throughout the land have been having powerful visions of the death of the very last dragon at the hands of a destined Dragonslayer and the return of Big Magic. In this scene, we meet Jennifer and her charges as they prepare to use their diminished powers on a home-improvement project. The Last Dragonslayer will be published Oct. 2. [Read the full article...]

The Last Dragonslayer, By Jasper Fforde

The Independent – November 22, 2010 (Excerpt)

Money is a form of alchemy,” says Mother Zenobia, the kindly head of the Sisters of the Lobster Orphanage.

“It turns kind normal people into greed-mongers, intent only on acquisitiveness.” Jasper Fforde has one of those effervescent imaginations that never throws in one joke when he can fit in two or three, but he also has a provocatively serious purpose. He creates his mad but logical parallel version of the Welsh Marches with loving detail.

The Last Dragonslayer stars Jennifer Strange, a teenage foundling who runs Kazam Mystical Arts Management. This Hereford-based company uses the now-failing power of wizards to do such mundane jobs as installing domestic electrical circuits by telepathy or delivering live organs by flying carpet. [Read the full article...]

A Mashup Of Mundane And Magical In ‘Dragonslayer’

NPR Book Review – October 4, 2012 (Excerpt)

It’s been a big year — well, a big few years — for young adult fiction, which I’m not going to complain about in the slightest; nothing beats a good YA novel for pure storytelling punch. But I might complain, just a little, about the overwhelming sameness of some of the plots. Dystopian futures, quiet-yet-spunky teenage girls, doomed love triangles — sound familiar? Suzanne Collins has a lot to answer for. Luckily, you can crack open The Last Dragonslayer and spend time with a protagonist who has a refreshingly different set of priorities.

Fifteen-year-old foundling Jennifer Strange is considerably more mature and responsible than her age would suggest. As the acting director of Kazam Mystical Arts Management, she rides herd on 45 “sorcerers, movers, soothsayers, shifters, weathermongers, carpeteers and other assorted mystical artisans,” all various degrees of distempered and dysfunctional in a world that’s becoming steadily less magical as the years roll on. She’s also the receptionist, accountant, chauffeur and paper-shuffler, filling out all the forms required by the Magical Powers (amended 1966) Act. [Read the full article...]

A Greyhound of a Girl, A Warm, Witty, Exquisitely Nuanced Multigenerational Story by Roddy Doyle

Editor — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:39:16 +0000

Mary O’Hara is a sharp and cheeky 12-year-old Dublin schoolgirl who is bravely facing the fact that her beloved Granny is dying. But Granny can’t let go of life, and when a mysterious young woman turns up in Mary’s street with a message for her Granny, Mary gets pulled into an unlikely adventure. The woman is the ghost of Granny’s own mother, who has come to help her daughter say good-bye to her loved ones and guide her safely out of this world. She needs the help of Mary and her mother, Scarlett, who embark on a road trip to the past. Four generations of women travel on a midnight car journey. One of them is dead, one of them is dying, one of them is driving, and one of them is just starting out.

About Roddy Doyle

Roddy Doyle is the author of nine novels. He won the Man Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. His novels have been made into popular films, including The Commitments and The Snapper. He lives and works in Dublin, Ireland.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

That’s four generations of Irish women, all whirling about in some state of consciousness or another, and it’s enough to make Mary dizzy. Mary is a cheeky girl, like many almost-teenagers, but she’s level-headed enough to embrace the ghostly visits from her great-grandmother Tansey, who looks young but “talks old” because she died at age 25 in 1928. Tansey’s spirit is sticking around for her dying daughter, Mary’s granny, to reassure her “it’ll all be grand” in the great beyond and, as it turns out, to join her family for one last tearful, mirthful midnight road trip. Doyle divides up the novel by character, giving readers first-hand glimpses into the nature of each woman through time. In a lovely, lilting Irish dialect, he deftly explores the common threads of their lives through story and memory, from family-owned racing greyhounds to the traumatic dropping of an egg. On the subject of mortality, Mary says, “…it just seems mean.” Her mother agrees. “It does seem mean. Especially when it’s someone you love.” Indeed. – Kirkus Reviews

‘A Greyhound of a Girl’ by Roddy Doyle

The Washington Post Book Review – September 4, 2012 (Excerpt)

Several years ago, the Irish writer Roddy Doyle published a children’s picture book called “Her Mother’s Face.” It told the story of a girl whose mother is dead and who lives in a desolate world with her bereaved father. The child is comforted by a mysterious stranger — an emissary from the afterlife, perhaps, or a figment of her imagination — and grows up to have a daughter of her own. Now, in a book for all ages titled “A Greyhound of a Girl,” Doyle revisits this theme of childhood loss and matriarchal consolation.

Mary O’Hara is 12 and cheeky. She lives in Dublin with her mother, father and two teenage brothers who are “boring and weird.” Mary’s best friend has left the neighborhood, her grandmother is dying in the hospital, and Mary fears that her childhood, too, is slipping away. One afternoon, she meets an oddly antique woman who seems to know her dying granny. When the stranger’s identity is revealed, Mary realizes that “her world was suddenly full of the dead and the dying, people she loved and people she was supposed to love.” The cocky girl is suddenly angry and afraid. “You look like your granny and I look like mine,” she snaps at her mother. “So what, like? Your granny is a ghost and mine is dying. And that’s the only thing that isn’t stupid.” [Read the full article...]

The Raven Boys, A Magic Novel by Maggie Stiefvater

Editor — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:24:30 +0000

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

About Maggie Stiefvater

Maggie Stiefvater is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the novels Shiver, Linger, Forever, and The Scorpio Races. She is also the author of Lament: The Faerie Queen’s Deception and Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie. She lives in Virginia with her husband and their two children. You can visit her online at www.maggiestiefvater.com.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

Meanwhile, 16-year-old Blue Sargent, daughter of a small-town psychic, has lived her whole life under a prophecy: If she kisses her true love, he will die. Not that she plans on kissing anyone. Blue isn’t psychic, but she enhances the extrasensory power of anyone she’s near; while helping her aunt visualize the souls of people soon to die, she sees a vision of a dying Raven boy named Gansey. The Raven Boys—students at Aglionby, a nearby prep school, so-called because of the ravens on their school crest—soon encounter Blue in person. From then on, the point of view shifts among Blue; Gansey, a trust-fund kid obsessed with finding King Glendower buried on a ley-line in Virginia; and Adam, a scholarship student obsessed with his own self-sufficiency. Add Ronan, whose violent insouciance comes from seeing his father die, and Noah, whose first words in the book are, “I’ve been dead for seven years,” and you’ve got a story very few writers could dream up and only Stiefvater could make so palpably real. Simultaneously complex and simple, compulsively readable, marvelously wrought. The only flaw is that this is Book 1; it may be months yet before Book 2 comes out. – Kirkus Reviews

‘The Raven Boys,’ by Maggie Stiefvater

The Washington Post Book Review – September 4, 2012 (Excerpt)

Hard on the hooves of “The Scorpio Races,”which won one of this year’s Printz Honors, comes Maggie Stiefvater’s latest supernatural thriller, “The Raven Boys”(forthcoming Sept. 18). In contrast to the melancholy werewolves of her popular Shiver trilogy, the Raven Boys are not paranormal critters but the entitled students of elite, raven-crested Aglionby Academy. They roam nearby Henrietta, Va., like a “pack of sleek animals armored with their watches and their Top-Siders,” says Blue Sargent, 16, the “trashy chic” daughter of the town psychic. That observation encapsulates what sets this book above the usual fangs-and-heavy-breathing fare: Stiefvater not only weaves a suspenseful tale of Blue’s involvement with three such boys and their quest for the grave of an ancient king, but she also does so stylishly, with sly social commentary. [Read the full article...]

Silver: Return to Treasure Island by Andrew Motion

Editor — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 12:48:22 +0000

It’s almost forty years after the events of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island: Jim Hawkins now runs an inn called the Hispaniola on the English coast with his son, Jim, and Long John Silver has returned to England to live in obscurity with his daughter, Natty. Their lives are quiet and unremarkable; their adventures have seemingly ended.

But for Jim and Natty, the adventure is just beginning. One night, Natty approaches young Jim with a proposition: return to Treasure Island and find the remaining treasure that their fathers left behind so many years before. As Jim and Natty set sail in their fathers’ footsteps, they quickly learn that this journey will not be easy. Immediately, they come up against murderous pirates, long-held grudges, and greed and deception lurking in every corner. And when they arrive on Treasure Island, they find terrible scenes awaiting them—difficulties which require all their wit as well as their courage. Nor does the adventure end there, since they have to sail homeward again…

Andrew Motion’s sequel—rollicking, heartfelt, and utterly brilliant—would make Robert Louis Stevenson proud.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

About Andrew Motion

Andrew Motion is a poet, critic, novelist, biographer, and a professor. He served as Poet Laureate of the UK for ten years and was knighted for his services to literature in 2009. He is now Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway College, University of London and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in London.

Editorial Review

It’s 1802, and 35 years since the Hispaniola set sail for Treasure Island. Former cabin boy Jim Hawkins owns a Thames-side inn outside London; his only child, also called Jim, is a well-educated amateur botanist. This 17-year-old Jim is our new hero and narrator, but don’t expect Stevenson’s pell-mell pace; Motion’s rhythm is much more leisurely. A blanketed figure in a small boat beckons to Jim. This is Natty, the tomboy daughter of the treacherous Long John Silver, who has his own inn upriver. It’s love at first sight for Jim, despite his unexplained fear of women. Natty takes Jim to meet Silver, blind and feeble. The old reprobate’s dying wish is for the youngsters to retrieve the remaining silver from the island. A ship and crew await them. Silver needs Jim to get the map, which his father keeps locked away; Jim’s theft of the map weighs heavily on his conscience, but he’s not about to pass up an adventure with Natty, disguised as a man for the voyage. Their position on board is privileged; Natty is her father’s representative, and Jim’s history is well-known. The situation on the island is horrifying. Stevenson’s three maroons, or castaways, have been joined by passengers from a shipwreck: 50 slaves and their guards. The maroons have imposed a reign of terror, resulting in a Conrad-ian “impenetrable darkness.” Natty will be captured. There will be exciting reversals of fortune before her stouthearted Captain’s party confronts the former pirates, who are almost too freaky in their “disgustingness.” Good people die; Jim must spill blood. In these scenes, Motion matches the raw vitality of Stevenson, though his conclusion is far more grim. – Kirkus Reviews

Buccaneers and Bullion - ‘Silver: Return to Treasure Island,’ by Andrew Motion

The New York Times Book Review – August 23, 2012 (Excerpt)

Alas for the unintended cruelty of a book-reviewing aunt! On the long ride to catch the sunset from the dunes above Lake Michigan, I handed my restless 7-year-old nephew a book from my beach bag: Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island.” Instantly and intently, he began reading aloud, propelled by the excitement of discovery. Later, back at the cottage, he asked, “Can I have my book now?” Guiltily, I told him he’d have to wait: I needed it for a story I was writing about “Treasure Island” and its new sequel, “Silver,” by the British poet Andrew Motion. I felt like a blackhearted mutineer.

But my nephew should count himself lucky. A boy who read “Treasure Island” when the book was first published in 1883 would have had to wait much longer than he did for a continuation of the adventures of the hapless but doughty innkeepers’ son, Jim Hawkins, and the wily one-legged pirate Long John Silver, who sailed on the Hispaniola seeking the doubloons of the notorious Captain Flint. The hoard they found was so vast they couldn’t haul it all back to England, so they took the gold and left the silver behind. Just as a gun that appears in Act I of a play must be fired before the curtain closes, a second treasure trove demands a second expedition. But Stevenson never launched one. He died in 1894, at the age of 44, a year after the publication of “Catriona,” the sequel to his second most famous novel, “Kidnapped.” [Read the full article...]

Ash, An Unexpected Re-Imagining of the Cinderella Tale by Malinda Lo

Editor — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 10:40:58 +0000

In the wake of her father’s death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away, as they are said to do. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted.

The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King’s Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Though their friendship is as delicate as a new bloom, it reawakens Ash’s capacity for love-and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love.

Entrancing, empowering, and romantic, Ash is about the connection between life and love, and solitude and death, where transformation can come from even the deepest grief.

About Malinda Lo

Malinda Lo’s first novel, Ash, a retelling of Cinderella with a lesbian twist, was a finalist for the William C. Morris YA Debut Award, the Andre Norton Award for YA Fantasy and Science Fiction, and the Lambda Literary Award. Her second novel, Huntress, a companion novel to Ash, is an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Her young adult science fiction duology, beginning with Adaptation, will be published in fall 2012.Â She lives in Northern California with her partner and their dog. Visit her online at www.malindalo.com.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

An unexpected reimagining of the Cinderella tale, exquisite and pristine, unfolding deliberately. Aisling—Ash—knows the fairy stories and lore told her by her now-dead mother, but she does not know if she believes them. When her father dies and her stepmother and stepsisters move her away from the Wood to the City, she finds herself returning to her mother’s grave, where she meets the fairy Sidhean. Ash barely notes her harsh treatment at the hands of her stepfamily, as she both longs for and fears her glimpses of Sidhean. He longs for her, too, in ways she is slow to understand. Ash also is slow to see Kaisa, the King’s Huntress, as the source of her own desire. When she does, Ash turns to Sidhean to make it possible for her to spend time with Kaisa, despite the price Ash knows she will have to pay. Ash and Kaisa’s dance at the King’s Ball is a wild and gorgeous moment, no less so than the night Ash must spend in Sidhean’s Wood. Beautiful language magically wrought; beautiful storytelling magically told. – Kirkus Reviews

A Beautiful Mask

The Los Angeles Review of Books – July 12, 2012 (Excerpt)

KNOWN AS A LESBIAN retelling of “Cinderella,” Ash by Malinda Lo is a beautifully subversive fairy tale, but the main character’s attraction to another woman is not what makes the story so astonishing. Rather, Lo’s book sets itself apart from recent young-adult novels through its contemplative pace, subversion of gender roles, and sad, lovely, dreamlike descriptions. The experience of reading the story is not unlike sinking into a soft blanket of moss in the Wood, as afternoon sunlight filters through the trees above you.

At its heart, Ash is a book about what it means to read and love fairy tales, and what it might mean to have the opportunity to live in one. (For what is the point of fairy tales if not to tempt the reader into making a wish to exchange his or her world for a different one?)

Ash‘s “Cinderella” roots are clear: Evil stepmother Isobel and slightly-less-evil stepsisters Clara and Ana make life miserable for 11-year-old Aisling (nicknamed Ash), claiming that Ash’s late father has left them in debt. They force Ash to repay her “family” by working as their maid (read: slave). Her only solace comes from the book of fairy tales left behind by her mother. Ash cherishes the stories and relies on them for comfort. [Read the full article...]

Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 by Phillip Hoose

Editor — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 11:14:59 +0000

B95 can feel it: a stirring in his bones and feathers. It’s time. Today is the day he will once again cast himself into the air, spiral upward into the clouds, and bank into the wind.

He wears a black band on his lower right leg and an orange flag on his upper left, bearing the laser inscription B95. Scientists call him the Moonbird because, in the course of his astoundingly long lifetime, this gritty, four-ounce marathoner has flown the distance to the moon—and halfway back!

B95 is a robin-sized shorebird, a red knot of the subspecies rufa. Each February he joins a flock that lifts off from Tierra del Fuego, headed for breeding grounds in the Canadian Arctic, nine thousand miles away. Late in the summer, he begins the return journey.

B95 can fly for days without eating or sleeping, but eventually he must descend to refuel and rest. However, recent changes at ancient refueling stations along his migratory circuit—changes caused mostly by human activity—have reduced the food available and made it harder for the birds to reach. And so, since 1995, when B95 was first captured and banded, the worldwide rufa population has collapsed by nearly 80 percent. Most perish somewhere along the great hemispheric circuit, but the Moonbird wings on. He has been seen as recently as November 2011, which makes him nearly twenty years old. Shaking their heads, scientists ask themselves: How can this one bird make it year after year when so many others fall?

National Book Award–winning author Phillip Hoose takes us around the hemisphere with the world’s most celebrated shorebird, showing the obstacles rufa red knots face, introducing a worldwide team of scientists and conservationists trying to save them, and offering insights about what we can do to help shorebirds before it’s too late. With inspiring prose, thorough research, and stirring images, Hoose explores the tragedy of extinction through the triumph of a single bird.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

About Phillip Hoose

Phillip Hoose is the widely-acclaimed author of the National Book Award winner Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, which is also a Newbery Honor Book, a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book, a YALSA Finalist for Excellence in Young Adult Fiction, and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, among other honors. His other books include The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and We Were There, Too!, a National Book Award Finalist. Mr. Hoose lives in Portland, Maine.

Editorial Review

B95 is a 4-ounce, robin-sized shorebird, a red knot of the subspecies rufa. Each February he joins a flock that lifts off from Tierra del Fuego and heads for breeding grounds in the Canadian Arctic, 9,000 miles away. Late in the summer, he begins the return journey. Scientists call him Moonbird because, in the course of his astoundingly long lifetime of nearly 20 years, he has flown the distance to the moon and halfway back. B95 can fly for days without eating or sleeping but eventually must land to refuel and rest. Recent changes, however, at refueling stations along his migratory circuit, most caused by human activity, have reduced the available food. Since 1995, when B95 was captured and banded, the rufa population has collapsed by nearly 80 percent. Scientists want to know why this one bird survives year after year when so many others do not. In a compelling, vividly detailed narrative, Hoose takes readers around the hemisphere, showing them the obstacles rufa red knots face, introducing a global team of scientists and conservationists, and offering insights about what can be done to save them before it’s too late. – Kirkus Reviews

Young readers: Phillip Hoose’s ‘Moonbird: A Year on the Wind With the Great Survivor B95

The Washington Post Book Review – July 31, 2012 (Excerpt)

Phillip Hoose’s first big book about a bird celebrated the loud, large and almost certainly extinct ivory-billed woodpecker. His new, equally well researched book focuses on a smaller, less distinctive-looking creature, but one that has a decent chance of survival — if humans cooperate.

Just as “The Race to Save the Lord God Bird” (2004) chronicled how conservationists tried to protect the woodpecker’s habitat, “Moonbird” shows a loose-knit team of scientists struggling to figure out why the worldwide population of the shorebirds called red knots has fallen by nearly 80 percent.

The true star of Hoose’s new book, however, is one particular red knot that was tagged with leg band No. B95 in 1995. Since then, the bird has often been seen during his epic migrations — more than 325,000 miles so far, farther than the distance between Earth and the moon.

With an effective mix of facts and conjecture, Hoose conveys B95’s wide experience, from the challenges of his first month in Arctic Canada 20 years ago to the physical demands of flying for three days straight. Hoose’s vivid prose and the book’s close-up photos give a sense of other red-knot talents, like fattening up for a long flight and sleeping while staying alert for predators. And there’s recent good news: B95 was photographed in late May, feasting on horseshoe crab eggs in Delaware Bay. [Read the full article...]

The Girl With Borrowed Wings, A Glimmering Love Story by Rinsai Rossetti

Editor — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 14:00:07 +0000

A stunningly written tale of an isolated girl and the shape-shifting boy who shows her what freedom could be–if only she has the courage to take it.

Controlled by her father and bound by desert, Frenenqer Paje’s life is tediously the same, until a small act of rebellion explodes her world and she meets a boy, but not just a boy–a Free person, a winged person, a shape-shifter. He has everything Frenenqer doesn’t. No family, no attachments, no rules. At night, he flies them to the far-flung places of their childhoods to retrace their pasts. But when the delicate balance of their friendship threatens to rupture into something more, Frenenqer must confront her isolation, her father, and her very sense of identity, breaking all the rules of her life to become free.

About Rinsai Rossetti

Rinsai Rossetti has lived in Thailand, Canada, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries. She has completed two years at Dartmouth College and now continues traveling.

Editorial Review

Expatriates, Frenenqer and her parents have lived many places but called none of them home. The teen’s world now is comprised of three boxes: her family’s apartment, her school and the car that takes her from one to the other within the dusty, isolated oasis. When, much to her father’s displeasure, Frenenqer rescues a large cat she finds caged in the souk, she liberates a “Free person,” a shape-shifting being “born without rules.” His are the wings she “borrows,” when he nightly takes her in his arms and flies her around the world and into the realms of the Free people. With Sangris, Frenenqer feels free for the first time in her life—but can freedom accommodate love? Rossetti’s lush language is highly metaphorical and often sensuous, befitting the unfurling of Frenenqer’s stunted soul: “And when I came back up the air was still fresh and calm-smelling,…and the palm trees rustled in faint applause.” Her earthy, often funny exchanges with Sangris represent freedom for both Frenenqer and readers from her cold, controlling father, whose “words have a way of shaping the world around him.” – Kirkus Reviews

Not Just for Kids: Rinsai Rossetti’s ‘The Girl With Borrowed Wings’

The Chicago Tribune Book Review – July 22, 2012 (Excerpt)

Ever since Stephenie Meyer’s”Twilight” grew into a worldwide phenom, paranormal romance has been dominated by shape-shifting mythological creatures embroiled in torrid, hormonal love triangles. So “The Girl With Borrowed Wings” is a welcome departure. Written by first-time novelist Rinsai Rossetti, this elegant, young-adult debut is a paranormal title, but the creature who shape-shifts is a common cat, and the romance is overshadowed by a domineering father so cold that his teenage daughter no longer believes in love.

It’s difficult to find modern, young-adult titles that so effectively convey female oppression or the perils of perfectionism. Whether it’s the searing Middle East heat that keeps 16-year-old Frenenqer isolated in three “boxes” — her home, her school and the gleaming white sedan that shuttles her between the two — or a family so unaffectionate and unadventurous that Frenenqer spends all of her free time reading books, the isolation is palpable.

Frenenqer isn’t a name so much as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The word means “restraint,” which is the manner in which Frenenqer is expected to conduct herself. She is the quintessential good girl who perceives her father as all powerful and suppresses her real thoughts and desires to conform to his ideals. If her father told the sky to rain, it would; if he told Frenenqer to jump off a cliff, she’d do it, she says. [Read the full article...]

Heart of a Samurai – Historical Children’s Literature Based on the True Story of Nakahama Manjiro by Margi Preus

Editor — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 12:40:02 +0000

In 1841 a Japanese fishing vessel sinks. Its crew is forced to swim to a small, unknown island, where they are rescued by a passing American ship. Japan’s borders remain closed to all Western nations, so the crew sets off to America, learning English on the way.

Manjiro, a 14-year-old boy, is curious and eager to learn everything he can about this new culture. Eventually the captain adopts Manjiro and takes him to his home in New England. The boy lives there for some time and then heads to San Francisco to pan for gold. After many years, he makes it back to Japan, only to be imprisoned as an outsider. With his hard-won knowledge of the West, Manjiro is in a unique position to persuade the emperor to ease open the boundaries around Japan; he may even achieve his unlikely dream of becoming a samurai.

About Margi Preus

Margi Preus has written many popular plays and picture books for children. She teaches a children’s literature course at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota, where she writes for Colder by the Lake Comedy Theater and also watches for whales on Lake Superior. Visit her online at www.margipreus.com.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

In 1841, 14-year-old Manjiro joined four others on an overnight fishing trip. Caught by a severe storm, their small rowboat was shipwrecked on a rocky island. Five months later, they were rescued by the crew of a whaling ship from New Bedford. Manjiro, renamed John Mung, was befriended by the captain and eventually lived in his home in New Bedford, rapidly absorbing Western culture. But the plight of his impoverished family in Japan was never far from Manjiro’s mind, although he knew that his country’s strict isolationist policy meant a death sentence if he returned. Illustrated with Manjiro’s own pencil drawings in addition to other archival material and original art from Tamaki, this is a captivating fictionalized (although notably faithful) retelling of the boy’s adventures. Capturing his wonder, remarkable willingness to learn, the prejudice he encountered and the way he eventually influenced officials in Japan to open the country, this highly entertaining page-turner is the perfect companion to Shipwrecked! The True Adventures of a Japanese Boy, by Rhoda Blumberg (2001). (historical note, extensive glossary, bibliography.) (Historical fiction. 9-13) – Kirkus Reviews

Meet Manjiro, Japan’s Unlikely Teen Ambassador

NPR Book Review – May 31, 2012 (Excerpt)

This month, NPR’s Backseat Book Club hits the high seas for an adventurous novel called Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus. The book begins in 1841, and is based on the sprawling true-life tale of Manjiro, whose destiny was almost determined before birth as a son in a long line of fishermen. But a storm blew his life on a new course, and he became one of the first Japanese to set foot in America.

It’s a story that’s so fantastic, so full of twists and turns, that it would be hard to make up. Manjiro left Japan for his first fishing trip at age 14, but was swept away from the coast and shipwrecked, Preus explains. After surviving for five months on an island, he was picked up by an American whaling ship and brought to the U.S., where he studied and had many adventures.

“Finally,” Preus says, Manjiro “made his way back to Japan where he had a hand in shaping modern Japan by influencing the shogun to open Japan’s isolationist doors to the West.”

In the 1800s, Japan was completely cut off from the outside world. It was so isolated that even details of Western life that seem mundane today — like buttons on a shirt or pockets in a pair of trousers — were exotic to young Manjiro. Manjiro and his Japanese culture seemed equally strange to the whalers who rescued him from the island where he had been stranded. [Read the full article...]

Where the Wild Things Are: Let the Wild Rumpus Start by Maurice Sendak

Editor — Wed, 09 May 2012 10:30:34 +0000

In the forty years since Max first cried “Let the wild rumpus start,” Maurice Sendak’s classic picture book has become one of the most highly acclaimed and best-loved children’s books of all time. Now, in celebration of this special anniversary, introduce a new generation to Max’s imaginative journey to Where the Wild Things Are.

About Maurice Sendak

For more than forty years, the books Maurice Sendak has written and illustrated have nurtured children and adults alike and have challenged established ideas about what children’s literature is and should be. The New York Times has recognized that Sendak’s work “has brought a new dimension to the American children’s book and has helped to change how people visualize childhood.” Parenting recently described Sendak as “indisputably, the most revolutionary force in children’s books.”

Winner of the 1964 Caldecott Medal for Where the Wild Things Are, in 1970 Sendak became the first American illustrator to receive the international Hans Christian Andersen Award, given in recognition of his entire body of work. In 1983, he received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award from the American Library Association, also given for his entire body of work.
Beginning in 1952, with A Hole Is to Dig by Ruth Krauss, Sendak’s illustrations have enhanced many texts by other writers, including the Little Bear books by Else Holmelund Minarik, children’s books by Isaac Bashevis Singer and Randall Jarrell, and The Juniper Tree and Other Tales from Grimm. Dear Mili, Sendak’s interpretation of a newly discovered tale by Wilhelm Grimm, was published to extraordinary acclaim in 1988

In addition to Where the Wild Things Are (1963), Sendak has both written and illustrated:

The Nutshell Library (1962), Higglety Pigglety Pop! (1967), In the Night Kitchen (1970), Outside Over There (1981), and, We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy (1993). He also illustrated Swine Lake (1999), authored by James Marshall, Brundibar (2003), by Tony Kushner, Bears (2005), by Ruth Krauss and, Mommy? (2006), his first pop-up book, with paper engineering by Matthew Reinhart and story by Arthur Yorinks.

Since 1980, Sendak has designed the sets and costumes for highly regarded productions of Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Idomeneo, Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, Prokofiev’s
The Love for Three Oranges, Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, and Hans Krása’s Brundibár.

In 1997, Sendak received the National Medal of Arts from President Clinton. In 2003 he received the first Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, an international prize for children’s literature established by the Swedish government. Maurice Sendak was born in Brooklyn in 1928. He now lives in Connecticut.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Maurice Sendak, Author of Splendid Nightmares, Dies at 83

The New York Times Book Review – May 8, 2012 (Excerpt)

Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on Tuesday in Danbury, Conn. He was 83.

The cause was complications of a recent stroke, said Michael di Capua, his longtime editor. Mr. Sendak, who died at Danbury Hospital, lived nearby in Ridgefield, Conn.

Roundly praised, intermittently censored and occasionally eaten, Mr. Sendak’s books were essential ingredients of childhood for the generation born after 1960 or thereabouts, and in turn for their children. He was known in particular for more than a dozen picture books he wrote and illustrated himself, most famously “Where the Wild Things Are,” which was simultaneously genre-breaking and career-making when it was published by Harper & Row in 1963.

Among the other titles he wrote and illustrated, all from Harper & Row, are “In the Night Kitchen” (1970) and“Outside Over There” (1981), which together with “Where the Wild Things Are” form a trilogy; “The Sign on Rosie’s Door” (1960); “Higglety Pigglety Pop!” (1967); and “The Nutshell Library” (1962), a boxed set of four tiny volumes comprising “Alligators All Around,” “Chicken Soup With Rice,” “One Was Johnny” and “Pierre.” [Read the full article...]

Maurice Sendak, author of ‘Where the Wild Things Are,’ other children’s books, dies at 83

The Washington Post – May 8, 2012 (Excerpt)

NEW YORK — Maurice Sendak didn’t think of himself as a children’s author, but as an author who told the truth about childhood.

“I like interesting people and kids are really interesting people,” he explained to The Associated Press last fall. “And if you didn’t paint them in little blue, pink and yellow, it’s even more interesting.”

Sendak, who died early Tuesday in Danbury, Conn., at age 83, four days after suffering a stroke, revolutionized children’s books and how we think about childhood simply by leaving in what so many writers before had excluded. Dick and Jane were no match for his naughty Max. His kids misbehaved and didn’t regret it, and in their dreams and nightmares fled to the most unimaginable places. Monstrous creatures were devised from his studio, but none more frightening than the grownups in his stories or the cloud of the Holocaust that darkened his every page.

“From their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions — fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can,” he said upon receiving the Caldecott Medal in 1964 for “Where the Wild Things Are,” his signature book. “And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming wild things.” [Read the full article...]

Maurice Sendak’s imagination took him into the wild, and beyond

The Washington Post – May 8, 2012 (Excerpt)

The child is bathed, dusted with bath powder, snug in cotton pajamas and, finally, tucked into bed.

“Read to me, Daddy.”

Which book?

“You know the one.”

Of course, I do: I reach for the familiar volume, pause over the cover, then turn to the first page: “The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another, his mother called him ‘WILD THING!’ and Max said ‘I’LL EAT YOU UP!’ so he was sent to bed without eating anything. . . .”

Many people think that creating a children’s book must be easy. After all, it’s just for kids, can’t be all that hard, right? In fact, the text of a great picture book calls for the skills of a poet. When you’re telling a story in a couple of hundred words, every one of them must be exactly right.

And when you’re also telling that story in a dozen or so pictures, every one of them must be a miniature masterpiece. For one artist to manage to do both equally well doesn’t happen very often. Dr. Seuss managed it for a whole series of Early Reader classics. Chris Van Allsburg created a holiday favorite in“The Polar Express.” But if you were to ask anyone — man, woman, child or grandparent — to name the best children’s picture book of the past 50 years, the winner would be Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are.” [Read the full article...]

An Inside Look At Sendak’s ‘Wonderful Magic’

NPR Book Review – May 8, 2012 (Excerpt)

Besides his influence on generations of children and adults, author Maurice Sendak was also a personal mentor to a number of writers. Sendak, who died Tuesday at age 83, told NPR in 2005 that he felt it was his duty to pass on everything he’d learned.

“This big gorilla head that’s stuffed full of experience — I want to give it away before I’m gone,” he said. “I want to give it away to young artists who are as vehement and passionate about their lives and work as I was and am.”

Among his mentees was Gregory Maguire, the author of Wicked, a number of children’s books and Making Mischief: A Maurice Sendak Appreciation.

Maguire tells Melissa Block, host of All Things Considered, that he visited the Where the Wild Things Are author in the hospital shortly before he died and brought a photo of Lewis Carroll. In the image, the Alice In Wonderland creator is seen sitting on the edge of a window with his feet hanging outside.

Maguire says Sendak felt a deep connection to Carroll and other authors who had come before him, including Emily Dickinson, Henry James and Homer.[Read the full article...]

Never Fall Down: A Novel About the Horrors of Khmer Rouge by Patricia McCormick

Editor — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:21:34 +0000

When soldiers arrive at his hometown in Cambodia, Arn is just a kid, dancing to rock ‘n’ roll, hustling for spare change, and selling ice cream with his brother. But after the soldiers march the entire population into the countryside, his life is changed forever. Arn is separated from his family and assigned to a labor camp: working in the rice paddies under a blazing sun, he sees the other children, weak from hunger, malaria, or sheer exhaustion, dying before his eyes. He sees prisoners marched to a nearby mango grove, never to return. And he learns to be invisible to the sadistic Khmer Rouge, who can give or take away life on a whim.

One day, the soldiers ask if any of the kids can play an instrument. Arn’s never played a note in his life, but he volunteers. In order to survive, he must quickly master the strange revolutionary songs the soldiers demand—and steal food to keep the other kids alive. This decision will save his life, but it will pull him into the very center of what we know today as the Killing Fields. And just as the country is about to be liberated from the Khmer Rouge, Arn is handed a gun and forced to become a soldier. He lives by the simple credo: Over and over I tell myself one thing: never fall down.

Based on the true story of Arn Chorn-Pond, this is an achingly raw and powerful novel about a child of war who becomes a man of peace, from National Book Award finalist Patricia McCormick.

About Patricia McCormick

Patricia McCormick is a former journalist who has won much acclaim for her compassionate approach to hard-hitting subjects. Her most recent book, Purple Heart, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2009, and her book Sold was a National Book Award finalist. Other seminal books she has written are Cut and My Brother’s Keeper. Patty lives in New York with her family.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Reviews

“Arn Chorn Pond is a fast-talking dynamo with endless energy and zest for life. In Never Fall Down, Patricia McCormick captures brilliantly the man, his heart, and his passion to make Cambodia and our world a better place for all. Arn’s against-all-odds survival story and McCormick’s crisp prose gripped me from the first page to the very end.” (Loung Ung, bestelling author of First They Killed My Father, and Lucky Child)

“One of the most inspiring and powerful books I’ve ever read. Never Fall Down can teach us all about finding the courage to speak our truth and change the world.” (Archbishop Desmond Tutu)

“Following the pattern of excellence McCormick began with her novel SOLD, she has created another amazing story through skilled and patient research.” (Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA))

Not Just for Kids: ‘Never Fall Down’ details horrors of Khmer Rouge

The Los Angeles Times Book Review – April 29, 2012 (Excerpt)

When it comes to genocide, Hitler is obviously well covered. There are countless titles for young readers about the atrocities he inspired. The Khmer Rouge, which seized control of Cambodia in 1975 and, in its attempts to create an agrarian form of communism, killed millions of its own people, is less familiar territory, especially for young readers.

“Never Fall Down” offers a detailed look at what it was like to live under such a cruel government from the perspective of one of its best-known survivors, Arn Chorn Pond.

Pond was 11 when his village was invaded by the Khmer Rouge and his family was forced to march toward an uncertain future. Pond thought it was exciting at first, but after walking for days, passing babies left crying in the middle of the road and ditches filling with dead bodies, he began to realize: He wouldn’t be returning home in three days as his captors had said.

“Never Fall Down” is written in broken English from Pond’s present-tense point of view, which adds to the story’s authenticity and immediacy. But it is in the end a novel. [Read the full article...]

‘Never Fall Down’: Surviving The Killing Fields

NPR Book Review – May 19, 2012 (Excerpt)

Prize-winning author Patricia McCormick is known for tackling challenging — even harrowing — themes in her young adult novels. Her book Sold, a National Book Award finalist, took on child trafficking. In her new book, Never Fall Down, she describes the atrocities of the Cambodian genocide, drawing upon the experiences of Arn Chorn-Pond, a real-life survivor, who joined her and NPR’s Scott Simon to discuss the novel and the lingering impact of his ordeal. [Read the full article...]