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1957 is the year that Frisbees soared, postage stamps cost three cents, and the Russians launched Sputnik.  It was also a time when women were typically kitchen-bound and wore skirts and aprons.  However, Kathleen Curie Gordon’s mom is not a Betty Crocker mom; she’s a professor of nuclear chemistry.  With a woman who resists convention as a mom and two older sisters playing from that same playbook, ten-year-old Katy, the protagonist in Out of Left Field by Ellen Klages, has learned to keep asking questions and to never settle for being ordinary. And Katy, who is more comfortable in cleats and a ball cap, isRead More →

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Strongheart: Wonder Dog of the Silver Screen written by Candace Fleming and illustrated by Caldecott medalist Eric Rohmann is based on the true story of Etzel, the German shepherd from the Bavarian Alps region who made it from a sun-washed barnyard to the Berlin Police Force and finally to silent-movie stardom in the 1920s. Through a technique called anthropomorphism—attributing human characteristics or behavior to an animal—Fleming invites readers to imagine a dog with movie star abilities and with a talent for reading people and making human connections. Etzel’s transformation from a carefree life as a puppy to “a cold, uncaring police dog, who slashed at otherRead More →

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Three stories told, three countries represented, and three lives profiled.  Despite the years that separate them, the trinity of humanity featured in Alan Gratz’s novel Refugee experience remarkable and horrifying similarities with intersecting conclusions. Imagine feeling unwanted, dirty, and illegal.   Imagine hearing sirens, soldiers, shouting, gunfire, breaking glass, and screams daily.  Imagine thinking that if you want to live, you have to leave your homeland and all that is familiar.  These are the realities of three refugees and their families: Josef Landau, a barely thirteen Jewish boy living in Germany in 1939 under the reign of Adolph Hitler; Isabel Fernandez, a pre-teen Cuban citizen enduringRead More →

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Although a work of fiction, A Promising Life by Emily Arnold McCully reads like nonfiction with its rich history of the early 1800s and its biographic-like details.  The novel tells the story of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, born among explorers on the Lewis and Clark Expedition to Toussaint Charbonneau and Sakakawea.  Half French Canadian and half Shoshone, Baptiste is métis American, but he finds himself caught by social circumstances that don’t wholly accept him.  Called Pompey, or Pomp, which means “the promising one,” Baptiste is favored by William Clark, so when his parents leave him in Clark’s care and travel upriver from St. Louis to aRead More →

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April 15 will mark the 105th anniversary of the historic event of the Titanic’s sinking, an event which is memorialized in Dan Gutman’s latest installment of The Flashback Four: The Titanic Mission.  Gutman preserves the Titanic’s history, as well as that of 1912, in a retelling that features four twelve-year-olds: Luke, a large white boy with a touch of Attention Deficit Disorder and a compassionate heart; Julia, a prep school blonde with a penchant for money, clothes, and risk-taking; David, a tall African American boy who never learned to swim but loves to laugh; and Isabel, a studious girl from the Dominican Republic who prefers toRead More →

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Set in 1724, The Unexpected Life of Oliver Cromwell Pitts by Avi tells the story of the Cromwell family living in Melcombe Regis, a small community on the southern coast of England.  Because his mother died during childbirth, Oliver forms a strong bond with his sister, Charity, who comforts and cares for him.  Their father, overwhelmed by grief at the loss of his wife and generally intractable, repeatedly lets his children down so that Oliver and Charity are often disappointed by their father’s poor parenting and wish for an instruction book on how to deal with inept parents.  Besides his drinking, gambling, and bad moods,Read More →

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As Jing turns eleven, she realizes that the age is “like an age of breakthroughs – tea-drying for the first time, my first offering to the guardian, visiting a new city, getting a new hanfu…new adventure, new experiences” (30). What seems like an exciting new period of her life quickly turns into her greatest fear, though. Jing’s widowed Aunt Mei has led the family since the death of Jing’s mother, and because of low resources, she convinces Jing’s father that it is time for Jing to get married. Jing is spirited enough to fight back against the plan to sell her to a big cityRead More →

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For readers who appreciate topics like Arthurian Legend, museum artifacts, bravery, or World War II history, The Metropolitans by Carol Goodman will not disappoint.  Goodman blends these subjects in a time-bending mystery that features four thirteen-year-olds who themselves have endured persecution for their cultural heritage: Madge McGrory, an Irish Catholic; Walt Rosenberg, a Jewish boy; Kiku Akiyama, a Japanese American; and Sose Tehsakónhes, a Mohawk Indian, also known as Joe.  The four form the Brotherhood of the Lost, since they have all experienced the trauma of loss but have found one another, bonding in friendship and courage.  But with those positive traits come their opponents:Read More →

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Fans of Jeff Kinney’s Wimpy Kid books and readers of Roald Dahl will find a similar “imaginormous” story line accompanied by pictures in David Walliams latest tween novel, Grandpa’s Great Escape.  Illustrations by Tony Ross add humor to the story of Jack and his Grandpa, a legendary World War II pilot in the Ro yal Air Force who has begun to exhibit symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Set in 1983 in London, the book begins like a theatrical production, with a list of opening credits followed by the cast of characters who are drawn with humor and a lively use of line.  Featured later in the text,Read More →