Book Review: Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett

Posted on by

Rbbit Cake cover imageElvis Babbitt has a head for science, but that doesn’t help her figure out how to navigate the world in the days after her mother drowned while sleepwalking. Her school counselor encourages her to go through the stages of grief, and expect them to take 18 months. Meanwhile, she worries that her older sister, a sleepwalker too, will poison herself while sleepeating. And that her dad, who wears her mom’s robe and lipstick to help his own grief, doesn’t know how to help his daughters deal with theirs.

Annie Hartnett’s Rabbit Cake is at times funny, heartbreaking, poignant, and hopeful. Elvis is both innocent and wise, and her observations of her family and herself are insightful and sometimes surprising. Her life is full of complexities, including concerns about mental illness in her sister, worries about her dad, and questions about her mother’s death. A hodgepodge of minor characters, like her school counselor and a girl in therapy with her sister, shows how everyone we interact with has the potential to profoundly impact our lives.

Elvis seeks answers from those she interacts with the most and discovers in the process that everyone she knows is dealing with their own brand of heartbreak, even if it doesn’t show on the surface. As told in her voice, Rabbit Cake is a touching story about family, love, innocence and loss that will stay with you long after you turn the last page.

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

Save

Book Review: The Water and the Wild by K. E. Ormsbee

Posted on by

The Water and the Wild cover imageLottie Fiske is an orphan, and her only friend is Eliot, who is sick with a disease the doctors cannot cure. But when she finds out how to travel to another world through the green apple tree in her hometown, she finds a doctor who may be able to save Eliot. She also learns of her own family, her mother and father who defied the restrictions of two worlds and paid a price. To save her friend, Lottie must confront a corrupt king and draw on the secret power she never knew she had.

The Water and the Wild by K. E. Ormsbee is a fantasy tale about one girl’s journey to discover who she is. Lottie’s adventure in another world is reminiscent of other children’s fantasy classics, like the Chronicles of Narnia and the Wizard of Oz books. The world Lottie falls into, New Albion, is full of strange creatures and odd terrain. But the people are like people everywhere. They want to protect those they love, they fight wars and long for peace, they battle sickness, and they search for allies.

The Water and the Wild is fun to read, and as the first in a series, readers can pick up Lottie’s story in the sequel, The Doorway and the Deep. I recommend it for readers aged 9 to 13 and their parents.

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

Book Review: Animal Planet Adventures: Dolphin Rescue by Catherine Nichols

Posted on by

Animal Planet Adventures: Dolphin Rescue cover imageMaddie and Atticus live with their dad in a small town on the New England coast. Maddie volunteers with the local aquarium, and she’s learned a lot about sea life there. The siblings are presented with the mystery of who has been pushing over garbage cans and scattering trash all around town. Together, they work to solve the problem, and they also find a way to save a baby dolphin caught in ocean garbage.

Their story is told in Dolphin Rescue, the first book in the Animal Planet Adventures series. Geared towards early and reluctant readers, Animal Planet Adventures books tell a good story while also providing lots of sidebars with facts about a certain topic. In Dolphin Rescue, young readers learn about animals that live on or near the beach, aquariums, the importance of keeping beaches clean of trash, dolphins, and more. It’s an interesting combination of fiction and nonfiction that is likely to appeal to young readers who say they prefer one or the other.

Illustrations and photographs are plentiful, encouraging kids to linger over the pages as they read. And the story is just right for sensitive young readers aged 6 to 10, who may appreciate more fun than scariness in their mysteries.

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

Book Review: The You I’ve Never Known by Ellen Hopkins

Posted on by

The You I've Never Known cover imageAs far back as she can remember, Ariel has been on the move with her dad, putting space between the two of them and the mother who abandoned her to run off with another woman. Every time Ariel thinks she and her dad will settle for a while, he picks up and leaves again. But now that she’s 17 and a senior in high school, Ariel decides she wants to put down roots, and she likes the place she lives. She meets Gabe, and is attracted to him, but she also thinks she may be falling in love with her best friend, Monica. It’s a confusing, emotional time, and Ariel doesn’t want to move before she figures out how she really feels.

When she discovers that her dad may have been lying to her, and that her mother didn’t abandon her years ago, she must confront the facts and decide how to live going forward, with or without her dad.

The You I’ve Never Known by Ellen Klages takes readers deep inside the lives of two women impacted by the same controlling man: Ariel and her mother Maya. Told in alternating style, with Ariel’s story in verse and Maya’s in prose, the story unfolds gently as it reveals the turmoil each feels given the facts of their circumstances.

Much of Maya’s story is told in the past, when she is a teen like Ariel. Both of their stories show them dealing with difficult family situations and trying to decide what is important in their lives. And as with her other novels, Hopkins doesn’t shy from portraying relatable, imperfect characters facing difficult decisions. The You I’ve Never Known will keep readers aged 14 and up eagerly turning pages right up to the end.

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

Book Review: Some Writer! by Melissa Sweet

Posted on by

Some Writer! cover imageSome Writer! The Story of E. B. White by Melissa Sweet clues young readers in on the life of Elwyn Brooks White, the beloved writer of Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan.

Born in 1899, near New York City, White loved spending summers with his family on a lake in Maine. Later, he bought a home near the same place he stayed as a child. His time on the farm helped him get familiar with the animals that lived there and inspired his writing for children, especially Charlotte’s Web.

Sweet’s biography uses excerpts from White’s letters and manuscripts interwoven with facts, photos, and collage to paint a picture of the author as a quiet person who started writing when he was young. He didn’t like attention, he loved his family, and he had a knack for writing stories that appealed to both children and adults.

Some Writer! is for anyone who loves White’s books and want to know more about him and his life. I recommend it for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 9 to 13.

I got a copy of this book from the library to review.

Book Review: Things Too Huge to Fix by Saying Sorry by Susan Vaught

Posted on by

Things Too Huge to Fix by Saying Sorry cover imageDani’s Grandma Beans always told her, “Sooner or later, we’re all gonna be okay.” But Dani wonders how that could possibly be true. Her best friend told her he’s not allowed to be friends with her anymore and her grandma slips away with dementia more and more each day. But when Grandma Beans tells Dani to find the papers, to get the key and open the box, Dani starts to unravel a mystery that concerns an old friendship gone bad and how it relates to the history of civil rights in Oxford, Mississippi.

Things Too Huge to Fix by Saying Sorry by Susan Vaught is a rich and complicated novel that addresses several issues of historical and contemporary importance. It’s aimed at young readers aged 9 to 12, but teens and adults will find just as much to appreciate in the story.

Dani, who is 12, has a white mother and an African American father. Her Grandma Beans is her dad’s mother, and she lived through the tumultuous events aimed at desegregating Mississippi in the 1960s. As Dani uncovers the segregated history of the town she lives in, she sees the vast differences between that time and the present. In current times, she feels no threat from being biracial. But she recognizes that many people struggled for years to make conditions change. And some of them paid a steep price to help that change happen.

Issues addressed include the value of friendship and actions that may destroy even the best of friendships, slavery and the Civil War, the Meredith riots in Oxford that occurred when James Meredith became the first black student to enroll at Ole Miss, aging grandparents and dementia, family secrets and more.

Even with an abundance of meaty issues to encourage thought and discussion, Things Too Huge to Fix by Saying Sorry doesn’t stray into preaching to get its messages across. Instead it stays true to telling the honest story of a 12-year-old girl concerned about her family, her friends, and her place in the world. I highly recommend it for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 9 and up.

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

Save

Book Review: My Dad is a Clown by José Carlos Andrés

Posted on by

My Dad is a Clown cover imageClowns sometimes get a bad rap, portrayed as frightening or creepy. But in My Dad is a Clown, a picture book by José Carlos Andrés, young readers get an idea of what it means to be a clown. The story is told by a young boy. Here’s how it begins:

“The other day at school, a classmate got angry at me and said, ‘Clown!’

I thanked him and gave him a kiss. He didn’t understand, but we became friends again.

My dad is a clown and I am very proud of him and his job, which is one of the most important jobs. Imagine how important it is. He makes people laugh.”

The boy has another dad named Pascual, who is a doctor. Pascual says the two men have two of the most important professions. One heals the body and the other heals the soul. But My Dad is a Clown also shows how much work it takes to be funny and make people laugh. It’s a tender look at a job most people give little thought to.

Quirky illustrations by Natalia Hernández are in black, white, and red. The story is also told in Spanish, making this book great for readers learning either English or Spanish.

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

Book Review: The Youngest Marcher by Cynthia Levinson

Posted on by

The Youngest Marcher cover imageAudrey Faye Hendricks was the youngest known child to be arrested during a civil rights protest in Birmingham, Alabama. Her story is told in a picture book, The Youngest Marcher: The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, a Young Civil Rights Activist, by Cynthia Levinson.

The year was 1963, when Audrey was nine. She had heard her parents and other grownups talk about the unfairness of racial segregation and ask for people to protest. Understandably, many people were afraid of being hurt and arrested and didn’t want to put their families at risk.

When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asked children to march, Audrey volunteered right away. She was arrested and spent one frightening week in juvenile hall. Others, mostly teens in high school, joined her over the week until the cells were full. Two months after her ordeal, Birmingham erased its segregation laws.

Today it’s hard to imagine the time when blacks weren’t allowed to drink from the same water fountains as whites, couldn’t sit in the same sections of restaurants, use the same elevators, or sit downstairs at a movie theater. It’s also hard to imagine the courage of a nine year old protesting when she knew she would be arrested, or that her parents allowed her to take action. Which is why picture books about children like Audrey are so important. They let young readers know that even children like them can make a difference when they stand up for something they know to be right.

Vanessa Brantley Newton’s illustrations show Audrey as she was, a young, curious, happy child with a determination to change things she knew to be wrong. An author’s note about Audrey’s time in jail and The Children’s March followed by a timeline of other events puts Audrey’s actions in historical perspective. Hers is an inspirational story with a message to resonate through the ages.

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

 

Save

Save

Save

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...