Book Review: The Confidence Code For Girls by Katty Kay & Claire Shipman

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The Confidence Code for Girls cover imageKatty Kay and Claire Shipman, authors of the New York Times bestseller The Confidence Code, have created a new book on confidence especially for girls aged 8 to 12. Aimed at reaching girls at a stage in life when they may need confidence boosters, the book is chock full of good advice, helpful exercises, and real-life examples of girls moving beyond their comfort zone to build self-assurance.

Called The Confidence Code For Girls: Taking Risks, Messing Up, & Becoming Your Amazingly Imperfect, Totally Powerful Self, the book is divided into three sections: The Keys to Confidence, Confidence Inside & Out, and The Confident Self. Each chapter presents a challenge that many girls face, like fear of failure, perfectionism, troubled friendships, and more. Girls can answer questions about how they may respond to challenges and get answers for ways to effectively handle all sorts of situations.

The advice is practical and inspiring, and the tips and tools are easy to follow. Exercises are available throughout the book, and girls can download a shield to create their own confidence code at confidencecodegirls.com.

I highly recommend The Confidence Code For Girls as a tool that girls can turn to again and again as they face changing situations in their lives.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Book Review: Sylvia Long’s Big Book for Small Children

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Sylvia Longs Big Book for Small Children cover imageSylvia Long’s Big Book for Small Children is a mash up of classic tales, family recipes, lullabies, and more. It’s pages should provide endless fun for moms and dads to read with their little ones.

They will find familiar stories like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and The Three Little Pigs, but there are also pages with items from everyday life. For instance, the “In the Kitchen” page shows things like measuring cups, a mixing bowl, a skillet, a saucepan and more. There’s an alphabet page and a colors page, but also a recipe for The Little Red Hen’s Cornbread that comes after the story about The Little Red Hen. Kids will certainly want to make the cornbread, Grandma’s Cornmeal Pancakes, and Mama Bear’s Porridge.

Illustrations are cute, with animals like cats, bunnies, pigs, foxes, chipmunks and others acting as the main characters. Long also modernizes a few tales, showing the three little pigs as sisters, Papa raccoon baking an apple pie, and Dr. Foster in a classic rhyme as a woman.

The variety of rhymes, tales, and life lessons make for an interesting mix that will surely keep young readers and their parents interested as they turn pages.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Book Review: Survivor Diaries: Lost! by Terry Lynn Johnson

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Survivor Diaries Lost cover imageWhat would you do if you were lost in a rainforest and needed to find your way back to safety? That’s the scenario presented in Lost!, a title in the Survivor Diaries series. Drawing on true stories of people who wandered off the path and lost their way, author Terry Lynn Johnson creates a tale that’s both a page-turner and how-to survival guide.

Carter and Anna are two pre-teens vacationing with their parents in Costa Rica. After they follow a well-known path away from their resort to find a legendary statue, they get spooked by howler monkeys and run off into the jungle. Once they stop they find they have lost the path, and the density of plant growth keeps them from seeing which way they came from.

Carter knows a lot about the rainforest, and he even has a survival kit, a precaution that helps tamp down his anxiety. But monkeys steal the kit, and the two find they are on their own. By pooling their knowledge and working together, they eventually find their way out of danger and back to their parents.

Survivor Diaries: Lost! is a great book to help young readers consider what they would do if they ever needed to survive on their own. There’s even a game they can play online at survivordiaries.com to help them figure out how prepared they already are, and what kinds of knowledge and supplies are useful to have. Just visit the website and click on “Play the Game” for any title in the series already published.

The author is a survival expert who researched true stories from multiple sources, including books, videos, articles, and journals to bring Carter and Anna’s story to life. It’s a gripping tale sure to spark the interest of readers aged 9 to 12.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Book Review: The Brilliant Deep by Kate Messner

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The Brilliant Deep cover imageHealthy coral reefs are a sign of a healthy ocean, with lots of fish and other organisms sheltering among the nooks and crannies they provide. Yet, with warming waters and other threats, coral reefs all over the world are in danger of disappearing.

Kate Messner’s picture book, The Brilliant Deep: Rebuilding the World’s Coral Reefs shows how one person with one idea has been giving new life to these beautiful colonies that build up one coral at a time.

Matthew Forsythe’s gorgeous illustrations take readers on a journey below the ocean’s surface to see single corals floating in the water as well as other creatures such as turtles, fish, and eels. The words and pictures tell the story of how one boy named Ken Nedimyer grew up to become a man with an idea about how to rebuild reefs near his home.

Nedimyer started a group called the Coral Restoration Foundation and taught volunteers how to farm-raise coral and transplant the colonies in the wild ocean. It’s an inspiring story that shows the difference one person can make when he cares deeply about a cause. A page at the back explains what happened to the coral reefs and lists ways kids can help with suggestions for how to learn more.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Book Review: Death Coming Up the Hill by Chris Crowe

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Death Coming Up the Hill cover imageChris Crowe’s novel, Death Coming Up the Hill, brings the turbulent events of 1968 alive for readers as seen through the eyes of Ashe, a high school senior. The story is told in haiku, one chapter for each week of the year. Ashe defines the concept at the start:

There’s something tidy

in seventeen syllables,

a haiku neatness

 

that leaves craters of

meaning between the lines but

still communicates

 

what matters most. I

don’t have the time or the space

to write more, so I’ll

 

write what needs to be

remembered and leave it to

you to fill in the

 

gaps if you feel like

  1. In 1968

sixteen thousand five

 

hundred ninety two

American soldiers died

in Vietnam, and

 

I’m dedicating

one syllable to each soul

as I record my

 

own losses suffered

in 1968, a

year like no other.

The opening sets the stage for the turmoil to come. Ashe’s father is a racist, his mother a peace activist who attends war protests. Ashe debates whether he should enlist in the armed forces after he graduates high school, like so many of his classmates plan to do. He gets through the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.

Week by week, haiku by haiku, he captures the uncertainties of the times and their impact on everyone he knows. Crowe’s choice of haiku to tell this story has a profound impact, because it strips away unnecessary language and focuses on the most important occurrences for Ashe and the people he knows.

Death Coming Up the Hill is a haunting tale likely to leave a lasting impression. I recommend it for readers aged 14 and up.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Book Review: Rosetown by Cynthia Rylant

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Rosetown cover imageFlora Smallwood’s life is changing when she starts fourth grade in Rosetown, the small Indiana community where she lives. Everyone else in her class seems to have grown confident of themselves over summer, but Flora is feeling off balance with her parents’ separation. She goes back and forth between their two homes while they figure out what they want to do about their marriage.

Flora has always found comfort reading at Wings and a Chair Used Books, where her mom works three afternoons a week, and soon she’s bringing a new friend there too: Yury, who has immigrated from Ukraine with his family. Yuri, along with Flora’s new pet, help her get through the uncertain times.

Rosetown by Cynthia Rylant is a sweet book about a girl who is discovering new things about herself and the world around her. The tale follows Flora as she becomes friends with Yury, spends time with her long-time friend Nessy, adopts a cat, learns to play piano, joins a choir, and takes on new things in school. Hers is an ordinary life, which is part of the appeal of her story.

As Flora ponders the new situations that come her way, she learns that people can be happy despite major upheavals, that her parents love her even if they aren’t sure about their own relationship, and that friends can have different strengths and be better friends because of it. It’s a tale as comfortable as the faded purple chair where Flora likes to read in the window of the bookstore. I recommend Rosetown for readers aged 8 to 10.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Book Review: Damselfly by Chandra Prasad

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Damselfly cover imageWhen Samantha Mishra and other members of her high school fencing team crash land on an uninhabited Pacific island, they are sure they will be rescued within a couple of days. The teammates attend an elite private school, and as some of their parents are very wealthy, it seems likely that no expense will be spared to find them.

But as the days go by and no ship or airplane appears, it becomes clear they may have to survive for a long time. They set up systems to find and ration food, water and shelter. But the stress takes a toll, and soon different factions are jockeying for power. They also have to contend with an unknown presence that seems to want to harm them.

Damselfly by Chandra Prasad reimagines the Lord of the Flies scenario. While the characters are older teens of both sexes instead of younger boys, the familiar setup is in place: young people being stranded in a remote location who devolve from civilized action as time goes on. It’s an interesting setup filled with tension and mystery. Under stress it doesn’t take long for bullying behavior to emerge and conflict to occur. Loyalties forged under normal times intensify.

Damselfly provokes thought for readers about what they would do in similar circumstances, making them examine their survival skills as well as their response to the emotional stress of isolation and injury. I recommend it for mother-daughter book clubs with members aged 11 and up. And if you’re discussing Damselfly in a group, you may want to check out the author’s Resources for Teachers page, which has ideas for projects, discussion questions and more.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Book Review: Be Prepared by Vera Brosgol

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Be Prepared cover imageNine-year-old Vera feels like the odd girl out among her friends, who get super-nice toys, have expensive birthday sleepovers, and go away to summer camp. As the daughter of a single-mom Russian emigrant, she lives in a house where money is tight and possessions are modest. So when she finds out about a Russian Orthodox summer camp near her home, she convinces her mom to sign her and her little brother up.

Be Prepared, a graphic novel by Vera Brosgol tells the mostly-true-tale of Vera’s time at camp. As the youngest in a group of girls, Vera often finds she still doesn’t fit in. She encounters mean pranks and is often lonely. She feels even worse when it seems her younger brother is having a great time. By the end of camp she has learned a lot about herself as well as how to make friends and be a good one.

Be Prepared provides an honest look at conflicting emotions and experiences kids can have at summer camp. When kids are required to live with each other 24 hours a day for weeks on end, moments of happiness and sadness are likely to ebb and flow depending on lots of variables. Even confident campers are likely to face challenges, and newcomers may have the hardest time adjusting.

Brosgol’s story is sure to resonate with anyone who’s had trouble fitting in and finding their way among a group of friends or in new situations. Her graphic illustrations show her as a wide-eyed, bespectacled nine year old who cycles quickly through emotional highs and lows depending on how confident she feels. It’s a great story for those who have been to summer camp as well as anyone who hasn’t always been part of the in crowd while they were growing up.

I recommend Be Prepared for readers aged 9 and up.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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