Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

Ella Enchanted was published many years ago, and I have read it several times before.  I read it again for two reasons. One is that we are going to be highlighting it next month for our Library Kids book activity.  The second is that Ms Levine is coming to the Library in May for our Children's Book Festival.  Of course, Ms. Levine has written many books since Ella Enchanted. Her latest is a collection of poetry called, "Forgive Me, I Meant to Do it: False Apology Poems" which I may review here at a later date.  Suffice it to say, it has the same scrappy, attitudinal, style we have come to know and love with Levine's writing.  Of all her books, Ella Enchanted is still one of my favorites.  I heard her talk about it when she was visiting Provo about 10 years ago.  She said that she was reading fairy tales to daughter, and the stereotypical portrayal of the helpless females  bothered her. She is a really spunky New Yorker, although only about 5 feet tall and 100 lbs, dripping wet.  Anyway, she set out create a fairy tale with a stronger female character and ended up winning a Newbery Honor.  It is a great retelling of the Cinderella story, and I recommend it to both boys and girls. (232 p)

City of Lies by Lian Turner

This the second in the series that began with The Museum of Thieves. I like the first one, but it ended so completely, I wondered what Turner could do with the second one.  In order to make the second story work, Turner takes the children, Goldie, Toadspit and his little sister, Bonnie, out of Museum of Dunt and to a new city that has it's own quirky magic. In that city, there is a Festival of Lies where everyone has to speak and act contrary to their normal manner.There is also a magical "big lie"  floating around the city.  If a townsperson gets caught in a big lie, and asks the right question, and gives the right answer they can be temporarily transported into a state where the lie they said comes true. It is, again, and interesting premise and magic system and Turner comes up with, if not surprising, at least entertaining adventures for the children as they try to locate one another, and defeat the evil forces that have followed them to the new place. (274p)

Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage

Mo's was named Moses when she was saved from a flooded river during a hurricane when she was just a baby.  She is taken in and raised by a quirky but lovable couple who own a diner in a small town in North Carolina.  Things in that town get pretty interesting when there is a murder and Mo's friend, Dale, becomes a suspect.  Mo and Dale form their own detective agency and take on the case to clear Dale's name.  As the kids get closer to solving the mystery the danger to them and their families grows until they find themselves in a race against the murderer, and a hurricane, to save their parent's lives. I like this book because the kids really do act like kids.  They don't do anything amazing and they aren't smarter than the adults.  They just kind of do what they can, and it all works out for the best in the end. This book is full of delightful and interesting characters and the plot twists and turns will keep young readers turning pages until the very end. (312 p)

The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester

This is a book one of my co-workers suggested for our after school book club.  I was a little hesitant to choose it, thinking that it wouldn't have much appeal for the boys.  After reading it, I think I am going to give it a try.  Piper McCloud is born on the same farm where her father was born, and her father's father.  The McClouds have been very predictable, no-nonsense kind of people for generations, that is, until Piper comes along.  She is a ordinary farm girl in every way, except one.  She can fly. Her parents, trying to maintain normalcy and protect her from public ridicule, encourage her to suppress your flying. Eventually her special ability is discovered, and she is whisked away to a school for kids with exceptional talents.  At first she is excited to develop her flying skills, but after a while, she begins to wonder if there might be a darker purpose for the school. This was a decent  fantasy.  The parents are well drawn, the relationships between the kids at the school are interesting, and there are a couple of unexpected twists along the way.  One thing that I didn't quite buy is the fact Piper ends up having way more social skills than she realistically would have, having been raised alone, with no friends, or even acquaintances her age.  I don't think kids will notice that small shortcoming, and I think there are some fun activities we can do with the book for the book club. (329 p)

Icefall by Matthew Kirby

Solveig is the second daughter of an influential  old Norse war lord/chief.  As the story starts, Solveig and her younger brother and older sister are sent to a secluded lodge at the base of a glacier  as a safety precaution while their father fights the clan of one of the older sister's disgruntled suitors. The children are accompanied by some servants and guards.  Soon after they arrive, more of their father's men join them; the elite berserkers who are their father's most valued fighting men, and their father's bard.  As winter ice seals the water passage to the lodge, it soon becomes apparent that there is a traitor in their midst.  The interaction between the unlikely lodge-mates, each suspecting the other of fowl play, forms the main tension in the story. Solveig, always overshadowed by her more beautiful older sister, and protective of her younger brother, makes friends with both the  bard, and the berserker chief. The relationships between the characters are deliciously complicated.  Solveig wants to trust the other lodgers, but she also fears for her own and her family's safety.  The book is at once and action adventure, a mystery, and a coming of age story. 

I think if I had read the book instead of listening to it, it might have ended up on my starred review list.  Unfortunately, I think the performance of the recorded book dampened my appreciation of the story.  The reader is one of these woman who have a very young sounding voice.  She did a great job interpreting Solveig, the other female characters, and even some of the male characters.  But her performance of the bard character, who ends up being a kind of mentor to Solveig, just didn't work.  He is supposed to be a engaging performer and story teller, but the voice she chose for him made him sound like a whiny prig.  For the first half of the book, I pictured him that way.  Then I began to realize that he was supposed to be charming and persuasive, not ridiculous.  Once I got his character switched in my head, and mentally substituted a different voice for him, the story made a lot more sense. In a nut shell, I recommend the book, but not really the recording.  (325 p)

Countdown by Deborah Wiles

In 1962 the Cuban missile crisis scared the begeebees out of every American.  What was it like to be a child back then? That is the question Wiles endeavors to answer in this  historical fiction/documentary.  Franny Chapman's father is a military pilot stationed in Virginia.  Franny's sister is just starting college and her little brother wants to be an astronaut.  Franny's uncle has serious PTS from WWII and is a source of extreme embarrassment to Franny when he starts to dig a bomb shelter in her front yard.  Then on October 16th J F Kennedy makes his historic announcement that Cuba has nuclear missiles pointed at the US.  All her other problems pale as she contemplates the possibility that she won't live to see her next Halloween. Between chapters of the story, Wiles inserts historical facts and culture bits reflecting the mood of the 60's.  There is a lot about how children were taught to duck and cover if there were a bombing.  There are also fairly long excerpts from Kennedy's speeches, and extended biographies of prominent historical figures of the time period.  It was all well written and tightly woven together.  It brought  back memories from my early childhood in the 60's.  Yet, with all that, I didn't like the book.  I have been trying to figure out why and I think I have it.  The tension never lets up.  It just builds and builds and the reader gets emotionally tired.  I think Wiles was trying to recreate the tension everyone felt during the crisis, but who wants to relive a crisis? Wiles needs to take a lesson from Shakespeare.  He always follows his most emotionally intense scenes with a bit a comic relief.  That is what this book needed.  It needed a bit of comic relief. That is just my opinion.  Two of my librarian friends at work loved it, and another couldn't get through it, so it was an even split.(377 p)

Sammy Keyes and the Night of the Skulls by Wendelin Van Draanen

Here is another long series that I have thoroughly enjoyed.  The first book in the series, Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief,  is actually my least favorite.  Ms Van Draanen had a little difficulty settling into the characters.  But by the second book, things were off and running. So if you want to start the series, know that it is worth plowing through the first one to get to the others. The premise is that Sammy is an early teen (preteen in the first book) who lives with her grandmother in a senior high rise.  The fact that she lives there has to remain a secret because the place is government subsidized for seniors only.  Sammy has to sneak up and down the fire escape, sleep on the couch, and hide all her stuff so anyone visiting during the day won't suspect.  Sammy is a modern Nancy Drew.  Somehow she manages to get involved with one major criminal investigation after another.  Like Nancy Drew she has a cast of friends that help her with her cases.  A nice thing about the books, is that Ms Van Draanen uses the stories to take on interesting social and ethical questions.  In this one Sammy and her friends take a short cut through a grave yard on Halloween night and come across a grave robber.  During the adventure Sammy becomes acquainted with different cultural traditions surrounding death, like the Mexican Day of the Dead and Brazilian Day of Skulls.  It is a side theme, and Ms Van Draanen is good about not making the "morals" heavy handed, but just having them develop naturally with the plot.  The books have fun adventure, snappy dialog and interesting mysteries.  I do have to put in a caveat.  About half way through the series, Sammy acquires a boyfriend.  They don't do anything but an occasional hug or kiss, but 13 is pretty young, in my opinion, for even that level of intimacy. (304 p.)