Reviewed By Dawn Baertlein

One Crazy Summer takes place mostly in Berkeley in the summer of 1968 where three polite little black sisters from Boston are dropped into the middle of the Black Panther scene.

Delphine, the oldest at 11, hardly remembers her mother, Cecile.  Cecile left seven years earlier, when the youngest was barely born.  The girls have been raised by their daddy and grandma ever since. 

Big Ma doesn’t have much good to say about Cecile, frequently describing her as a crazy lady living on the streets.  So when the girls are told they’re being sent to spend the summer in California getting to know their mother, they expect the worst.

Delphine takes charge, putting a positive spin on the trip by playing up the plane ride and dreaming of beaches, movie stars and Disneyland.  She is determined not to let her sisters make a “grand Negro spectacle” of themselves in front of all the white people they meet along the way.

Told from the first person point of view of Delphine, the word choice reflects her time and place in history.  The term African American never appears in the book, as it was not yet coined.  This was a time of Afro hair styles, discrimination, and protests.

When they reach Berkeley, Cecile lives up to her reputation as a lousy mom.  The kitchen is totally off limits, and dinner is always the same Chinese takeout that the girls have to go buy for themselves. But at least Cecile has an apartment rather than the cardboard box or park bench that Delphine feared.

Not that they get to spend much time in the apartment.  Every morning Cecile sends them down the street to the park where the Black Panthers serve up free breakfast and some sort of summer camp for kids.  Cecile tells the girls to stay gone all day so as not to disturb her work.

Her work, like the rest of her is a mystery, but it turns out Cecile is a poet for the Black Panther cause, and has a printing press in her kitchen.  Very cool!

One Crazy Summer, suggested for ages 7 to 12, won the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and is both fun and enlightening.  A lot has changed in 43 years, and a lot has stayed the same.

Happy Reading!

Reviewed by Dawn Baertlein

Calpurnia Virginia Tate is eleven-years-old in the year 1899, a time when girls are expected to confine themselves to cooking, knitting, and tatting (lace-making), at the same time wearing corsets tight enough to cause spontaneous fainting.

Much to her mother’s dismay, Callie Vee finds less feminine interests that excessively hot, dry summer.  Callie notices a new kind of big, yellow grasshopper.  The usually common emerald ones have become scarce.  She wonders why.

She does an experiment where twice a day she pours water on the parched ground in one particular spot to watch the earthworms come to the surface.  After only 4 days the worms, drawn by her footsteps, rise up even before she pours the water.  How do they learn?

The world is exploding with wonders.  An expertly a woven hummingbird nest, tent caterpillar webs, giant catfish, dog eyebrows, and much much more!

Callie’s oldest brother Harry gives her a notebook to record her observations as well as her questions.  He tells her she’s a budding naturalist!  But what is a naturalist?  When Callie keeps bugging Henry with her natural mysteries, he finally says, “Go ask Grandfather, he knows that sort of thing.”

Grandfather lives with the family, yet he’s apart.  He’s the farmer/businessman who built the cotton-based foundation of their fine life, but he’s no longer interested in business.  Nowadays he prefers to tinker in his “laboratory” letting Callie’s father and six brothers continue the legacy. 

Yes, Grandfather knows “that sort of thing,” but he’s…  well… he’s scary!  When Callie’s curiosity gets to be too much, she does ask Grandfather, and that’s when an incredible friendship begins, as well as a partnership in science.

Each chapter begins with a quote from Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species, which Callie is struggling to read.  While some readers may find that off-putting, I urge you consider that the study of nature and science is yet another way to honor God’s work.  Evolution might just be God’s way of creating.  And who can say how long a day lasted back before there was a sun for defining morning and night?

Jacqueline Kelly’s first novel, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, is also a 2010 Newberry award winner, and it’s easy to see why.  Not only is it filled with the wonder and joy of nature, but human comedies and dramas as well -- Henry’s courting fiasco, Callie’s tatting entry at the fair, the wonderful friendship between Callie and her gruff old grandfather.

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate is recommended for ages 9 – 13, and those of us who continue to be young at heart, and ever so curious.

Happy Reading!

Reviewed By Dawn Baertlein

Fight of the Phoenix, book one of the Nathaniel Fludd, Beastologist series, is a fun, quick read for younger kids grades 3 to 6. 

Ten-year-old Nate Fludd is a good and quiet child hoping to someday grow a sense of adventure, like his parents’. It’s 1938 England and his mum and dad have been traveling for work for three years while he waits patiently for their return, or at the very least a letter from them!

When he and his governess get word that his parents were lost at sea at the North Pole, he is sent to live with his Aunt Philomena in a town aptly called Batting-at-the-Flies. (Oh, those flies!)

Aunt Phil is the kind of aunt any adventurous kid would love to live with.  Nate -- not so much.  When he learns they are flying to Arabia in a tiny plane Aunt Phil calls her Sopwith Playtpus, he’s not sure he has the courage. 

He is a Fludd, however, so he puts on his goggles and climbs aboard.

Along the way Nate learns that he comes from a long line of mapmakers and beastologists.  Beastologists are people who study and protect creatures so rare the rest of us think they are mythological or just made up.  But they are real!

With his parents presumed dead, he and Aunt Phil are the last remaining fludds and there is a beast to be protected.  The rare and endangered Phoenix bird bursts into flames every five hundred years.  The pile of ash must be protected from wind and twigs must be added to keep it burning for a few nights.  Then the Phoenix will be reborn to live another five hundred years.

Simple!  Until Aunt Phil is kidnapped by angry Beduins, and Nate has to take care of nest of ashes all alone.  Well not quite alone.  He has his pet gremlin to help.  And mostly she’s a help.

R.L. (Robin) LeFevers is a fine storyteller with a talent for keeping things interesting.  She also gives great writing workshops and tips for young and old.  For more about this author check out her website at http://www.rllafevers.com/books.html .

Happy Reading!

Reviewed By Dawn Baertlein

The New Policeman is a modern Irish folktale, blending Irish Music (there’s a playable tune at the end of every chapter), Irish mythology, and the rush of modern life into an intriguing fantasy/mystery. 

J.J. Liddy is an expert fiddler at age 15, and all his life he and his family have hosted their small town’s ceilis, which are dance parties with live music.  But people just don’t have time any more.  It’s all anyone can do most days to get the necessary work done to make a living, and feed the family.  Kids barely have time for school and the required extracurricular activities.

When J.J.’s mother makes a birthday wish for more time, J.J. promises to find it for her.  But he never dreams there’s a supernatural reason for the way time is slipping away.

His quest leads him to Tír na n'Óg, the land of eternal youth, where time is supposed to stand still, but no longer does.  Slowly time is inching away, and J.J. must figure out why.

Tied up in all this are the mystery of the newly arrived policeman, who can’t seem to quite remember things but plays a mean fiddle, and the rumors that J.J.’s great-grandfather killed a priest, something J.J. will not believe.

Some readers may feel that it takes a few too many pages for the magic to begin in The New Policeman.  Still, even before J.J. finds his way into Tír na n'Óg to visit the fairies, the novel Irish setting make this a fascinating read.  You can hear the Irish brogue as you read, and the glossary at the end comes in handy.

The explanation of where our lost socks go is just an added benefit.  It seems there are leaks between our world and the land of the fairies, often right behind our clothes dryers.  Our stray socks spew into Tír na n'Óg from time to time.  This is also why the fairies tend to wear unmatched socks.

The New Policeman is recommended for grades 7-10, and is the winner of several British awards.

Happy reading!

Reviewed By Dawn Baertlein

Steampunk?   Say what?  That was my reaction the first time I heard the term.  But I say old chap, I am onboard now!

Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction/alternative history set in the Victorian era when steam was a main source of power.  According to Wikipedia the category has been around since the 1980’s, though I’ve only recently heard it.

Now, however, I see steampunk everywhere.  The 1999 movie Wild Wild West with Will Smith is a perfect example.  President Ulysses Grant has to be saved from a giant steam powered spider.  Steampunk!

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a good steampunk movie comparison to this month’s book because of the literary references. This 2003 moviemakes use of Tom Sawyer, Captain Nemo of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and The Invible Man, among others.

The Hunchback Assignments brings to mind, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, of course, and also Frankenstein’s Monster, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  

Set in 1860’s England, this first book in a series follows a couple of young protagonists raised separately to be agents for a secret society.  Modo was only a year old when Mr. Socrates purchased the hunchback from a traveling freak show, and took him home to instruct. 

Raised in strict isolation, Modo has been schooled academically as well as in the arts of combat.  His powers of observation are tested frequently, and Mr. Socrates allows no frivolity.  Fortunately Mrs. Finchley manages to show him a little love, and the lighter side of literature on occasion.

On top of his learned skills Modo also has the power, for brief periods of time and with great effort, to transform his misshapen face and body into any human countenance he chooses.  And oh how he would choose not to be forever ugly.

In spite of the hardships he’s endured Modo is a kind and gentle soul.  This makes it all the more shocking when Mr. Socrates dumps him on the streets of London, and he must fend for himself.

It is here that Modo meets Octavia Milkweed.  They work together, at first unknowingly, to bring down the Clockwork Guild.  This nasty group is kidnapping children and turning them into automatons in and effort to destroy the British government.

It’s all very big and complicated, and at some points rather gruesome.  There’s a bit of cruelty in the prologue that grounds the reader in the pseudoscience of this fictional world, and gives him/her a big clue as to who the bad guys are, which isn’t as obvious as you might think.  While reading the prologue I had to remind myself – it’s only fiction.  I was glad I forged on.

The Hunchback Assignments is for older kids, grades 6 and up, and is a wild adventure not for the faint of heart.

Happy Reading!

Reviewed By Dawn Baertlein

Here’s a supernatural adventure for you.  It starts out a bit gruesome, with a family being killed while snug asleep in their beds.  But it quickly becomes oddly amusing.

The youngest of the family, a mere toddler, escapes the bloodhound-like murderer called the man Jack.  The little tike is more oblivious than fearful as he climbs out of his crib for a midnight stroll out the front door and up the hill.

He arrives at a graveyard with the man Jack hot on his trail.  The ghostly inhabitants have to make a quick decision.  Do they mind their own business, or do they rescue the little live one and care for him until he’s big enough to care for himself? 

It’s a big commitment, but the inhabitants of the graveyard vote to take it on.  Mistress and Mister Owens become the boy’s guardians and name him Nobody Owens.  Bod for short. 

Silas, a man neither dead nor alive, ventures into the human world from time to time procuring food, clothes, books, and all the things a living child requires. 

Meanwhile the entire spectral village, with death dates ranging all the way back to an ancient Roman times, educate the boy in the ways of the dead and, as best they can, the living.  As long as Bod stays within the cemetery he is protected, but the world outside is full of dangers.

Bod loves his family, and the wide variety of characters from a young witch to an old poet make for a wonderful upbringing.  Still, as Bod gets older he wants to walk among the living once in a while.  Unfortunately, the man Jack and others like him are still looking for Bod, and for some reason want to kill him.

Author Neil Gaiman has a knack for supernatural spine tinglers with a sprinkling of dry humor, and his Graveyard Book is the 2009 Newbery Medal winner.

 The Graveyard Book is suggested for ages 10 and up.

Happy Reading!

Reviewed By Dawn Baertlein

Katsa is beautiful with her one blue and one green eye, but the different colored eyes mark her as a Graceling, one Graced with special talent.  A Grace can be anything from the ability to dance magnificently, tell fascinating stories, or swim with great speed. 

Katsa’s Grace is her undefeatable ability to fight.  She and the world discovered her grace unexpectedly when at eight-years-old she accidentally killed a man.  The leering lecher reaching for her leg may have deserved to die, but she had not intended it.

  A Grace of such power attracted the attention of Katsa’s uncle, king of one of the seven kingdoms.  He swiftly had her trained by his best fighters, and by the time she was sixteen he’d retained her as a henchman to enforce his tyrannical laws and whims.

This was not the life Katsa would have chosen for herself, and as a secret act of rebellion she formed the Council to defend those unfairly persecuted.  As the book opens she is rescuing the kidnapped elderly father of one of the other area kings, though why he’s been kidnapped no one knows.

Graceling’s characters are deep and conflicted.  Katsa is so physically strong and able to take care of herself that she has difficulty with friendships, and she cannot even comprehend such a thing as marriage.  Any sort of dependence on another person is out of the question.

Then she meets Prince Po, the grandson of the man she has just rescued.  Prince Po is also a Graceling, with his own secrets, and demons.  He’s almost as good a fighter as Katsa, and as they spar every day, sharpening their skills, they grow ever closer, even as Kats struggles to remain apart.

Between political intrigue, romance, action and adventure this book had me riveted from page one.  The strong, intelligent Katsa trying to find her place in a world made mostly for men is an interesting study as well.

Graceling is recommended for ages 14 and up.  Due to violence and romantic themes, it is for the older YA (young adult) crowd and even adults who enjoy fantasy adventure.

Happy reading!