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Book Review: Priscilla Gorilla by Barbara Bottner and Michael Emberley

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Cindy Hudson

“When Priscilla turned six, her dad gave her a book called All About Gorillas. They read it a million skillion times!”

So starts Priscilla Gorilla, a book about an inquisitive, lively young girl who learns a lesson or two about how to get along in school as she plays out her fascination with gorillas.

Author Barbara Bottner deftly captures both the joys and challenges of being the parent or teacher of a six year old. When Priscilla, like lots of kids her age, focuses on gorillas, she wants to know everything about them. She also wants to look like one and act like one. Illustrator Michael Emberley portrays Priscilla’s flair for life perfectly, showing her drawing with her toes, wearing gorilla pajamas, swinging from a bookcase, and practicing a gorilla dance.

The trouble for Priscilla is, her outsize personality gets her in trouble with her teacher, who often has to send her to the Thinking Corner. Before long, she’s encouraging her classmates to act as she does, and most of them also end up in the Thinking Corner. That’s when Priscilla starts to realize that instead of making trouble, she’d like to cooperate.

In the end, a special trip lets all the classmates and the teacher have fun while appreciating what they learned from Priscilla.

Young readers aged 4 to 7 and their parents will fall in love with Priscilla Gorilla and one little girl’s quest to have a great time while she learns.

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

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Book Review: Piper Perish by Kayla Cagan

Posted on March 20, 2017 by Cindy Hudson

For years Piper Perish has had a plan to follow in the footsteps of her idol, Andy Warhol, and go to art school in New York City. She plans to escape her hometown of Houston with her two best friends, who are also artists. But everything starts to fall apart midway senior year when her boyfriend breaks up with her, her older sister becomes pregnant and moves back home, and several issues put a wedge between her and her best friend Kit. Channeling her stress into art saves Piper when she needs it the most.

Piper Perish by Kayla Cagan looks at a stressful time in life, graduating from high school and moving towards adulthood. Piper is a portrait of contradiction. She loves her parents, but she can’t stand the dynamic at home, where her sister’s mental issues take center stage. She wants to get away, but other than actually getting accepted into the only school she applies to, she doesn’t know how to make that happen. She wants things to go back to normal with her friends, but she takes actions she knows will make them mad and assumes they’ll get over it.

For someone so desperate to leave her current circumstances, I found Piper to be naive about the financial resources it would take her to do so, and unrealistic in limiting her opportunity for escape to one option. Her lack of planning meant only a fairy-tale-like solution would solve her problems.

I found Piper a hard character to like, and I would have preferred to know more about how she created her art and what made her so good at it. But I believe many teens are apt to identify with the conflicting emotions she experiences, which she communicates through diary entries that detail her life from New Year’s Day until the summer after graduation.

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

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Interview With Annie Hartnett, Author of Rabbit Cake

Posted on March 14, 2017 by Cindy Hudson

Yesterday I reviewed Rabbit Cake, Annie Hartnett’s first novel. Told through the eyes of an 11-year-old girl who’s family is learning to copy after her mother dies, Rabbit Cake has all the elements to make a great book-club book: issues to discuss, a story that is sometimes funny and sometimes heartbreaking, and a memorable protagonist with an evolving perspective on the world around her.

Today I’m happy to feature an interview with Annie Hartnett, where she talks about a girl named Elvis, discovering things about your parents, and vegetarian-friendly rabbit cakes. First, here’s a bit of a bio:

Annie Hartnett

Annie Hartnett was the 2013-14 winner of the Writer in Residence Fellowship for the Associates of the Boston Public Library and has received awards and honors from the Bread Loaf School of English, McSweeney’s, and Indiana Review. Hartnett received her MFA in fiction from the University of Alabama and an MA from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English. Rabbit Cake is her first novel. www.anniehartnett.com

And now, her interview with MotherDaughterBookClub. com.

Why did you decide to tell Rabbit Cake through the voice of eleven-year-old Elvis, instead of her teen sister or her dad?

AH: I did write one very early iteration of the story from the mother’s perspective—but once I tried it from Elvis’s perspective, the story was hers. And I added an older sister because I always wanted one myself (apologies to my two brothers for that wish!).

It’s also more interesting to me to tell the story from Elvis’s perspective because Elvis doesn’t quite get everything about the adult world, the way an adult would. Lizzie picks up on certain things much faster than Elvis does, and it’s fun to watch Elvis puzzle out adult relationships, particularly romantic ones.

How did you come up with the name Elvis for a girl?

AH: I was obsessed with Elvis Presley as a kid, ever since a visit to Graceland when I was seven years old. Because I so strongly associate Elvis with my own girlhood, it made perfect sense to me.

I’ve since learned that there are women named Elvis! My parents’ favorite restaurant, a little Irish pub called O’Hara’s, was originally owned by a woman named Elvis. I would have loved to meet her, but I think she’s dead now. I bet she was a force to be reckoned with—how could she not be, with a name like Elvis.

Elvis discovers things that she never would have guessed about her mom. Can you tell us why you think people are so willing to talk to her about incidents they may have preferred to keep secret?

AH: Oh, I guess because Elvis is kind of quiet…sometimes when you’re talking to a person who does more thinking than talking, you end up doing more sharing than you really should. Elvis is also a very sweet, sensitive person, so even though she might say something odd to make you feel better, she will try to make you feel better. Like when Elvis tells her older sister not to worry about peeing on the houseplants while she sleepwalks, because that’s something a female wolf would do. Not very helpful, maybe, but sincere.

Without giving too much away, can you comment on how her discoveries change the way she views her mom, her dad, and her sister?

AH: Well that’s part of what the book is about—how our perspective of our parents changes as we age. It starts around Elvis’s age, ten or eleven, that you realize your parents aren’t completely perfect. Which is both horrifying and comforting. It helped me to know that my mother wasn’t perfect, and that she didn’t really expect me to be perfect either. Really, all my mother ever wanted was for me to be happy, and she was okay with most of the mistakes I made because she’d made them too. But she did ask me never to pierce my nose. She hates nose piercings. She likes my tattoo.

What makes you hopeful for Elvis and her family as life goes on for them?

AH: I think Frank Babbitt really steps up as a parent by the end of the book. I think Eva, the mom, took care of a lot of things in the house, and there was a lot he didn’t have to think about in terms of childrearing when she was around. Once Eva dies, he really fumbles around for a while, but ultimately he figures it out.

Is there anything else you’d like to add for readers at Mother Daughter Book Club. com?

AH: For those wondering about the title, rabbit cakes are vegetarian-friendly. No rabbits were harmed in the making of this book. I’ve been a vegetarian since I was six years old—my mom thought it was a phase, and she accommodated the phase, but it stuck…it’s been twenty-four years since I last had a Slim Jim (that’s the only meat product I miss).

I hope you enjoy Rabbit Cake, and I’d love to see you at some point on the tour! (Check out her tour schedule here.)

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Book Review: Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett

Posted on March 13, 2017 by Cindy Hudson

Elvis 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.

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

Posted on March 7, 2017 by Cindy Hudson

Lottie 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 February 28, 2017 by Cindy Hudson

Maddie 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 February 22, 2017 by Cindy Hudson

As 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 February 9, 2017 by Cindy Hudson

Some 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.