Book Review: Flying the Dragon by Natalie Dias Lorenzi

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Flying the Dragon cover imageSkye’s dream is to make it onto the advanced soccer team for summer near her home in the Washington, D.C. area. Hiroshi wants nothing more than to enter his first kite-flying competition in his small town in Japan. Neither will get what’s expected when Hiroshi’s family moves to the U.S. for his grandfather to get a special treatment for cancer. He’s never met his cousin Skye, as her father had a falling out with his family before she was born.

Skye has never thought much about her Japanese heritage. She only thinks of herself as American, and as her dad didn’t force her to learn much Japanese, she can’t even speak well with her foreign relatives. While Skye and Hiroshi are too polite to let on that they don’t like each other, there are conflicts right away. Skye doesn’t want to babysit Hiroshi at school, and he wants to make other friends too. Hiroshi has a close bond with their grandfather, and now that their time together may be limited, he doesn’t want to share that time with Skye.

Flying the Dragon by Natalie Dias Lorenzi is a story about family, identity, and learning to focus on what’s important. As Skye gets to know her relatives from Japan, she finds herself leaving behind some of the things she thought were most important to her in the past. And Hiroshi, who is adapting to life in a new country as well as a sick relative, has to learn how to share the things and the people he loves so he can be happy in his new home.

The tale goes back and forth from Skye’s perspective to Hiroshi’s, and Lorenzi does an excellent job of making each character come alive. The art of traditional kite flying in Japan does a lot to bring the cousins together, and it is interesting for U.S. readers to learn about.

Flying the Dragon is a great book to read in mother-daughter book clubs where the girls are aged 9 to 12. Issues to discuss include cultural differences between the U.S. and Japan, family conflict, ethnic identify, grief and more. I highly recommend it.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Book Review: Wumbers, Written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld

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Wumbers cover image“Are you usually prompt, or do you 10d 2 be l8 and keep others w8ing?” “What is the lati2ude and longi2ude of where you live?” This combination of words and numbers comes from a great new book for young readers called Wumbers, wri10 by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustr8ed by Tom Lichtenheld.

These clever combinations of numbers and words will have you and your child puzzling out the meaning behind comments such as, “Here’s the plan: I’ll climb the s2l and go str8 to the cookie jar. You be on the lookout 4 Mom.” In the process, your child can practice reading and verbal number skills. The colorful illustrations are fun and whimsical, like the drawing of children on a swing with flying 10ies.

Wumbers is a book I would imagine children asking their parents to read to them again and again. It’s also one I expect they would pick up on their own to puzzle out the word/number combinations. I recommend it for readers aged 4 and over.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Book Review: Marathon by Boaz Yakin and Joe Infurnari

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Marathon cover imageThe run that gave the marathon race its name was actually part of a much longer trek that the runner was making to save Athens from an invasion by the Persians. The graphic novel Marathon, by Boaz Yakin and Joe Infurnari tells the story of the runner, a former slave named Eucles.

Eucles was granted his freedom as a boy when he was allowed to compete in a race with other free children. When he won, the king’s illegitimate son paid a terrible price. And when Eucles was granted his freedom, it came at a cost: the threat to perform well always as a messenger or sacrifice his parents. He came to hate the king who made the pronouncement.

When Eucles grew up, he became known as one of the most reliable of messengers, and his skills were put to the test when the Persian king sent an army to conquer Athens. Eucles ran to ask for help from Sparta, back again and then onto the battlefield. His amazing journey is the stuff of legend, and a great topic for a graphic novel. With flashbacks to the past and gripping scenes of the battle, Marathon is an adventure that races along.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Book Review: Girl, Stolen by April Henry

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Girl, Stolen cover imageGriffin wasn’t looking to kidnap a girl. He only wanted to steal a car. But Cheyenne was sleeping in the back as she waited for her stepmom to fill a prescription to treat Cheyenne’s pneumonia. Once he realized what he had done, it was too late to put Cheyenne out. When Griffin finds out Cheyenne is blind, he thinks his problem is solved. He figures he can drive the car to his dad’s house, take Cheyenne somewhere far away, and leave her to be found. But he doesn’t count on the fact that Cheyenne’s father is wealthy. Or that once his dad found out, he would ask for a ransom.

Girl, Stolen by April Henry is a thriller told through the eyes of 16-year-old Cheyenne and her accidental kidnapper, Griffith. Cheyenne has been through tragedy before. Her mother was killed in the car accident that left her blind three years before. Griffith comes from a rough family. His father steals cars and sells their parts, and his mother left years before. The two are worlds apart, and yet, as they get to know each other they realize they may each be the other’s best chance of escaping their current situation.

The story goes along at a fast pace as the tension mounts. Cheyenne runs through scenarios on escaping to keep herself safe. Griffin sees the life he leads through her eyes, and it’s not a pretty sight. I admired Cheyenne’s tenacity, and I ached for the situation Griffin found himself stuck in. Henry expertly wove in details and added plot twists that kept me wondering how things would turn out. I enjoyed Girl, Stolen to the last page, and I recommend it to mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 14 and up.

I bought a copy of this book to read for my book club.

Book Review: The Domino Effect by Andrew Cotto

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The Domino Effect cover imageDanny Rorro is happy growing up in his mostly Italian neighborhood in Queens, where he is known as Domino, or little Dominick, after his dad. But the neighborhood is changing, and as much as Danny would like to believe that ethnicity doesn’t count, not everyone feels that way. When he tries to bridge the gap by playing basketball with a group of Latins, older kids call him “Spic lover,” and “traitor.” Before long, they decide to teach him a lesson with a baseball bat that lands him in the hospital.

With his world uprooted, Danny begins to act out at home until his parents give him a choice: military school or boarding school. The boarding school he attends is a relief in some ways, but there are still racial conflicts between an African American basketball player and white wrestlers. Once again Danny finds himself in a situation that won’t be easily solved, but he’s figured out a thing or two about fighting back without throwing a punch.

The Domino Effect by Andrew Cotto is a thoughtful coming of age story that quietly reveals Danny’s struggle to understand ethnic polarization, first love, the meaning of friendship and how to do what he knows is right. He is a flawed character who doesn’t always do the right thing, which makes him even more believable. Yet, as he comes to grips with the challenges he has faced in his life, he learns how to decide what’s right for him and move toward his future.

A book for both boys and girls, I recommend The Domino Effect for readers aged 14 and up.

The author provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Book Review: The Mom 100 Cookbook by Katie Workman

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The Mom 100 Cookbook cover imageFor many moms coming up with ideas for meals, then cooking them, can be one of the most frustrating things about family life. Even moms who love to cook may not feel there’s enough time to put healthy, tasty food on the table day after day and night after night. The Mom 100 Cookbook: 100 Recipes Every Mom Needs in Her Back Pocket comes to the rescue. Author Katie Workman, founding editor in chief of Cookstr.com, has written a cookbook that can help moms consistently serve food their families will love, and maybe even get their kids to help make it.

The Mom 100 Cookbook is divided into sections that make it easy to find what you’re looking for. And the recipes are presented as solutions to dilemmas. For instance, the chapter titled “Potluck” describes the dilemma as “How’d I get stuck with making the main dish.” I know exactly what that feels like. Usually, when potluck plans are made I feel confident about what I can do in the future, but when the time comes to actually make something, I fall short of ideas. The solutions presented here, recipes with chicken, beef, pork, turkey and rice, all seem easy to make, beautiful to present and satisfying to eat: just what you hope for when you make something for a potluck.

There are 20 chapters in all, covering breakfast, lunch, snacks, soups, salads, main course meats, vegetables, dessert and more. There’s also a great section at the end called “What You May be Looking For” that categorizes the recipes. So if you’re looking for something that can be made in 30 minutes or less, make-ahead dishes, or main courses to impress someone (as well as many other categories) you can quickly find which recipes in the book fit.

I particularly like Workman’s side notes, such as “what the kids can do” and “vegetarian note.” Also, she starts each chapter with notes about what she’s learned along the way that are good overall tips for the types of food she’s cooking.

I tried several recipes in the book and found they were all tasty, easy to prepare and looked nice when I served them. While The Mom 100 Cookbook won’t truly fit into your back pocket, the format it’s in is easy to lay out on a counter without worrying about the pages closing and losing your spot just when you’re following a crucial step—quite a plus as far as I’m concerned. This is one cookbook that I plan to shelve for easy access and frequent use.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Book Review: 101 Puzzle Quizzes by the Grabarchuk Puzzle Family

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101 Puzzle Quizzes cover imageYou either love puzzles or you don’t, and in my family my youngest daughter and I love them. We work the newspaper’s Sudoku, Jumble and Crossword and we put together jigsaw puzzles on the coffee table. We always have a puzzlebook handy for those moments where we just need to kill a little time and want to engage our brains.

That’s why I was happy to discover the GrabarchuPuzzles collection of puzzlebooks. While the Grabarchuk Family has lots of books out, including one for Valentine’s Day, another for Christmas and lots of types of quizzes and brainteasers, I recently downloaded a copy of 101 Puzzle Quizzes to review.

I don’t work many puzzles on my computer, but I used the Kindle Cloud, which easily downloaded to my Mac, to test out these puzzles. Immediately I was hooked. I like that the puzzles are in color, and that when you choose and answer you get to find out immediately if it’s right or wrong, as a message comes up congratulation you or telling you to try again. The only danger is that you have to be self-disciplined enough to really figure out the answer before you click. Otherwise it’s easy to make a half-hearted effort, guess, and redo the puzzle if it turns out you’re wrong. But no puzzle addict I know would do this right? (Okay, sometimes I do, but only when I’m feeling impatient.)

Puzzle icons are displayed near the front, so you can jump around and do the ones that are calling your name most at the moment. The price is right too—$2.99 for what could provide hours of puzzling. Other titles are available in paperback for those who prefer to solve their puzzles the old-fashioned way, with pencil on paper.

The author provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Book Review: Camp by Elaine Wolf

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Camp cover imageWhen Amy’s Uncle Ed buys Camp Takawanda for Girls in Maine, her dad signs her up for the eight-week summer program even though she doesn’t want to go. Amy’s mother, who is unemotional with Amy, is even harsher with her younger brother, who has autism. Amy knows she needs to stay home to run interference between the two of them, and because Charlie is closely bonded with her.

But when summer comes Amy finds herself on a bus from her home in New Jersey to the woods of Maine, and right away she knows she doesn’t fit in with the rest of the group. The camp bully, who has Amy’s cousin on her side, also harasses her. Through the long weeks of camp, Amy learns to find her voice, make friends with some of the other girls, and remembers a disturbing incident with her mom when she was younger. But it’s not until camp ends that a shattering event will let her truly understand her mother and herself.

Camp by Elaine Wolf explores some really tough issues: bullying, strained mother-daughter relationships, finding your voice, and a hint of sexual abuse. These are all important issues to discuss, and a mother-daughter book club with girls 14 and over is a good place to discuss them. Though at times I felt the camp bully and Amy’s mother were too extreme in their actions, and I would have liked to know more about their motivations earlier in the story, I found Amy’s story—she’s caught between a needy brother, rigid mother and controlling campmate—compelling and thought-provoking.

The author provided me with a copy of this book to review.

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