Bomb: The Race to Build - and Steal - the World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin

Dear Mr. W,

I just finished Bomb by Steve Sheinkin. It is about the development of the atomic bomb during World War II. There are four parts to the story. Part 1: Three-Way Race, Part 2: Chain Reactions, Part 3: How to Build an Atomic Bomb, and Part 4: Final Assembly.

The Three-Way Race introduced in Part 1 is about who would be able to build the first atomic bomb. The United States, working with the British, were fighting against the Nazis from Germany. The USSR was fighting against the Germans too, but even though the Soviets and the Americans were both fighting the Germans, the two countries weren't friends. That’s who was involved in the three-way race: the United States (with the British), the Germans, and the Soviets.

The United States hired the best scientists in the country to develop the bomb. The Germans were doing the same thing with their country’s best scientists. The Soviets wanted to develop a bomb, but most of their resources were spent fighting the Germans. Instead of trying to create their own bomb, the Soviets tried to steal information from the Americans.

While the Americans were working to develop their own bomb, the British were helping by trying to stop the Germans. The British had spies in countries that Germany occupied. They discovered that a major factory working on materials for the bomb was in Norway. Working with Norwegian underground fighters, they successfully destroyed the factory by sneaking in at night. They pulled off the mission, and none of the Norwegians were ever caught. The factory was soon put back into operation. Later, many of the same people successfully sank a boat transporting materials for the Germans. Even though the first attack was temporary, in the end the British and Norwegians basically stopped the Germans from creating their own bomb.

The Soviets were the Americans’ allies in the war, but they also were spying on the Americans. Soviet scientists were eventually able to build a bomb of their own but only by using information stolen by spies in the United States. They had spies who talked to American scientists and sometimes convinced them to help the Soviets. The Soviets were communists, which is another form of government, and they convinced some Americans that even if they were able to develop their own bomb, it would be important for another country, the USSR, to have the bomb too, to keep the Americans from becoming too powerful. Even loyal Americans sometimes agreed with the Soviets’ ideas about communism, which encouraged them to share American secrets.

Sincerely,
Brian Sixth Grader

Son by Lois Lowry

Dear Mr. W,

I just finished reading Son by Lois Lowry and wanted to tell you about the setting. There are three main places where Son takes place.

The first setting is the community where Jonas and Gabe live in The Giver. Claire is a birthmother in the community. (The title refers to her son.) She received her assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve about two years before Jonas receives his selection. I thought a lot about The Giver as I read. Everything in the community is the same. People live in plain houses. They all ride bikes. Meals are delivered to every house. To me it would be a very boring existence. A lot of time is spent in a laboratory where fish are raised to be food.

The second setting is a new place, a village on the sea. There is a huge cliff by the village which prevents anyone from leaving the village by land. Most everyone makes a living from the sea. The village is very old and old fashioned. Houses are not much more than huts, there are dirt roads, a harbor with fishing boats, and some fields with sheep and animals. The events that happen here occur after the events of The Giver.

Finally, the last setting is the same village as was in Messenger, but the events happen after the events of Messenger. This village is not advanced like Jonas’ first community, but it is civilized and the people are kind. Much of the time is spent in Jonas’ house. (You learn a lot about him in Son, like he’s married and has kids.) His house is warm and welcoming and happy. Whenever I imagine it I see a fire in the fireplace and smell a pot of something delicious cooking. It feels like a place I’d like to sit and visit for a while.

After reading the book and knowing that events happen in Jonas' community from The Giver and in the village from Messenger, I was surprised that there were no events in the village from Gathering Blue. Looking back it almost seems like it should. There are still many important connections to Gathering Blue, just not the setting.

The book was great, but Lois Lowry has a way of ending books without really ending them, like there’s still much more story to be told. I guess I’ll just have to imagine my own rest of the story.

Sincerely,

Brian 6th Grader

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt

Readers were introduced to Doug Swieteck in the 2008 Newbery Honor winning book The Wednesday Wars. He’s mentioned by name seven times in the first two pages as Holling Hoodhood explains all the reasons why their teacher, Mrs. Baker, should hate him. This includes Doug’s list of 410 ways to get a teacher to hate you, a list containing strategies that became illegal around #167 and where #6 earns a two week suspension.

Yeah, that Doug Swieteck. Remember him? He’s back in Okay for Now, Gary D. Schmidt’s latest book, which features eighth-grade Doug as the main character. And instead of Doug’s 410 ways to get a teacher to hate you, Okay for Now is 360 pages to get a reader to love you.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s the same Doug Swieteck. But as readers learn about Doug’s abusive father, his oldest brother in Vietnam, his next brother a bully, and his kind and gentle mother smothered by her family situation, readers begin to understand Doug Swieteck as a person rather than just an antagonist.

Okay for Now opens with Doug’s father announcing that the family is moving to Marysville in upstate New York. The Swietecks move into The Dump in Stupid Marysville. “I hate this town,” Doug declares not long after arriving.

And now is where the reviewer generally gives an overview of plot. But I don’t want to. Instead, I want you to read Okay for Now based on my highest recommendation alone, to savor this book, to tear up and laugh and cheer at Doug’s actions and circumstances. I want you to share the same emotions as me as you discover more about Doug and appreciate how Gary D. Schmidt has constructed this masterful novel.

Doug likes statistics and often lists them for certain situations, so as Doug would say, here are the stats for what all readers should experience one their own, without a reviewer’s perspective. All readers should:

• learn how to drink a really cold Coke from Lil, the first person and classmate Doug meets, outside the Marysville Public Library. 
• hear Mr. Powell’s art lessons in the Marysville Public Library. 
• feel the tension between the members of the Swieteck family. 
• understand what makes Mr. Ferris set Clarence, the toy rocking horse, rocking. 
• follow Doug on his grocery deliveries for Mr. Spicer, Lil’s father. 
• see how Doug becomes the test subject for Miss Cowper’s County Literacy Unit. 
• meet Mrs. Windermere and the god of creativity that sits on her desk. 
• slowly recognize how John Audubon’s paintings in the library parallel Doug’s life as Doug learns more about the birds, the paintings, and art. 

You see? There’s so much … too much … okay. Try this:

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt is about the year Doug Swieteck moves to Stupid Marysville, New York, how he slowly discovers the difference between the external persona he has created and the internal person he truly is, and which one he decides to be. It is at the same time heart-breaking and heart-warming. It demonstrates both the fragility and strength of human character. It will build within you an appreciation for birds, art, horseshoes, and the New York Yankees.

It is the best book I’ve read in some time and, quite simply, a book you must read.

Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus

At the beginning of Heart of a Samurai, in 1841, Manjiro is a fourteen-year-old fisherman.  Over the next twelve years of his life he endures a shipwreck, is rescued by American whalers, spends years at sea, and explores both coasts of North America.  At the end of the book he is a man in his mid-twenties, still motivated by his overwhelming desire to return to Japan.

The book is divided into five parts.  After being shipwrecked on a deserted island (part one), Manjiro and his fellow fishermen are rescued by barbarians - westerners, as seen by the Japanese.  Part two tells how Captain William Whitfield of the whaling ship John Howland quickly recognizes Manjiro’s eagerness to learn.  Manjiro learns English, the economic importance of whales, prejudice, and the Captain’s inability to take him back to Japan.  Now calling him John Mung, Whitfield offers to take Manjiro home with him to New Bedford, Connecticut.

Part three details Manjiro’s time in New Bedford learning farm life, going to school, trying to understand the very different American way of life, and continued prejudice.  Part four tells of another whaling trip and Manjiro’s participation in the California gold rush in 1849.  Finally, part five is about Manjiro’s ultimate quest to return home.

That’s a lot of ground (and water) to cover in just under 300 pages.  Just like the novel’s main character, Heart of a Samurai doesn’t stay too long in one place.  Readers must pay close attention to the passage of time.  Many chapters begin by giving a month and a year.  At other times a chapter’s opening paragraph will pass six months.  Chapter 20 begins with “Winter was quiet.” Five lines later it says, “But spring brought ...”  Readers may not know, for example, that whaling voyages literally took years, so missing the passage of time may lead to confusion.

At the same time, the novel’s fast pace never leaves readers in one spot for long.  Manjiro moves from whaling to school to whaling to gold rush, and readers will be eager to see what sort of adventure comes next.

At the end of the book, author Margi Preus includes an extensive glossary of Japanese words, terms, and phrases, whaling terms and parts of a ship, and sailor’s lingo.  (And if one of my oppos proves to be a shonkey, I may tell him to stow it before he finds himself with the devil to pay and no pitch hot.)  Heart of a Samurai will be good for upper elementary and middle school students who know the ropes and who won’t be whistling up a wind when trying a more challenging read.

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

The Red Pyramid introduces readers to Carter and Sadie Kane.  Fourteen-year-old Carter is home-schooled by his professor father as they travel the world studying ancient Egypt.  His sister, twelve-year-old Sadie, lives in London with her maternal grandparents.  Carter and Sadie see each other two days a year, one visitation day in both winter and summer.  The book begins on Christmas Eve, winter visitation day, as Carter and his father arrive late to see Sadie.  Dr. Julius Kane has arranged a Christmas visit to the Egyptian Collection at the British Museum.

Readers, and the Kane siblings, quickly realize that there’s more to Julius Kane than an advanced Egyptian education when their visit to the museum ends with an explosion, magical appearances, a fiery man making threats, and their father trapped inside a sarcophagus.  Later they learn that their father’s actions at the museum have released five ancient gods, two of which have taken up temporary residence inside Carter and Sadie.

The next 500 pages are mostly a sprint from death-defying explosions to attacks by mythical creatures to trips to the land of the dead to a run-in with an evil Elvis jumpsuit.  (Really, no kidding.)  Along the way are numerous lessons on ancient Egypt.  There are pharaohs and gods, legends and rules, and magical methods transportation.  Carter knows bits and pieces from traveling with his father, but Sadie learns at the same pace as readers do - only as other characters explain the details to the Kane siblings.

I’m torn on which direction this review should go, so rather than pick a side (while relaxing on Christmas vacation, no less), I’m going to stay right here comfortably riding the fence, give both sides, and let readers decide.

I have three (and a half) concerns with the first book of Rick Riordan’s new Kane Chronicles series:

1. At 516 pages, it is unnecessarily long.
2. My lack of background knowledge on ancient Egypt had me trying to keep all the gods and legends and rules straight rather than focus on the main characters’ and plot’s development.  At least with The Lightning Thief I had some knowledge of Greek mythology to draw from.
3. It was easy to miss the changes in narrators between Carter and Sadie every couple chapters.
4. (only half a concern) It requires readers to suspend their disbelief more than the average fantasy novel, but that’s less of a problem with young readers who are generally more eager to do so than grown-ups.

Now, a number of my students have read The Red Pyramid, and based on my observations and conferences with them, here’s how my concerns have translated to young readers:

1. Doesn't matter.  More of a good thing.
2. Doesn't matter.  Most kids have little knowledge of Greek mythology, too.
3. Doesn't matter.  Kids apparently pay more attention to chapter headings.
4. Doesn't matter.  Suspension of disbelief.  Not a problem.

I’m pretty sure I would have recommended this book to students regardless of my personal feelings.  The Red Pyramid moves at an incredible pace with each chapter offering readers another hair-raising adventure and there’s magic and battles galore.  Rick Riordan knows the formula to keep readers reading.  High action, flying-fast pace, amazing escapes, brave battles, and a sequel to come.

Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer

Hope is the perfect name for her.  Not Tulip.  Definitely not Tulip.  She nearly died after being born.  Her mother left her to be raised by her aunt.  She moves frequently, leaving behind the people she cares for.  But she knows Hope is the perfect name.  Her aunt Addie says a name like Hope is a lot to live up to and asks, “You think you’re up to carrying that name?”

Hope Yancey doesn’t just believe she’s up to it.  She proves it.

When Addie and Hope move from Brooklyn, New York to Mulhoney, Wisconsin to work as head cook and waitress at the Welcome Stairways restaurant, they do so to make a living, not necessarily to make a new life.  What they thought were new jobs turns out to be much, much more.

Shortly after their arrival, G.T. Stoop, the owner of the Welcome Stairways, announces his candidacy for mayor despite the fact that he has leukemia.  Lou Ellen, a waitress at the Welcome Stairways, is concerned about her baby daughter’s slow development.  Yuri, a recent immigrant from Russia, nervously busses tables and carefully navigates American culture with his broken English.  Hope is needed in the Welcome Stairways, and not just another good waitress.

Hope establishes herself as a talented waitress in the restaurant, a true friend, and as the summer progresses, a staunch supporter of G.T. Stoop for mayor.  She becomes friends with Braverman, the assistant cook, and a number of others as they work together on G.T.’s mayoral campaign.  Throughout it all Hope maintains … hope.  Hope that G.T. will win.  Hope that Lou Ellen's daughter will get better.  Hope that she can make a difference.  Hope that someday she will meet the father she never knew.  She’s even prepared the story of her life in scrapbooks for the moment her father arrives.

Joan Bauer has created a story full of characters that readers will enjoy, care for, and admire.  There are teenagers who work for goals larger than themselves and individuals who place the wellbeing of others above their own.  Hope Was Here is filled with people who learn and know what faith, hope, and love can do.  Readers will cheer the characters’ achievements and share their disappointments.  Readers will feel their joys, their sorrows, and all the emotions in between.

The I-94 welcome sign on the Wisconsin-Illinois border.

Finally, and I know not all readers share my Cheesehead bias, but nevertheless, don’t hold it against Hope when she describes her entrance into Wisconsin as “Green rolling hills.  Cheese billboards.  Grazing cows.  Basic bovine boredom.”  She hadn’t been enlightened yet!  And just a scant 122 pages later Hope says,

“You think all teenagers care about are musicians and movie stars?

Spend some time in Wisconsin.

We’ll blow your socks off.”

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

For as much as I liked The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, I’m unsure if I can say the same about Mockingjay.  Instead of immediately feeling like I’ve read an instant classic, more than anything it leaves me wondering.  I wonder if I liked it.  I wonder if there’s too much violence, hate, revenge, and death.  I wonder if there’s too little love, trust, and forgiveness.

I wonder if I can recommend it.

But wait, I get ahead of myself.

In the first two books, Katniss has survived the Hunger Games and the uprisings in districts around the country that threaten the Capitol of Panem, uprisings touched off partly due to her actions.  To be sure, tensions have been high without Katniss, but now she has become “the Mockingjay,” a symbol of the rebellion that the citizens of Panem can rally around.

The Hunger Games is a book about survival.  Catching Fire is also about survival but with the added undercurrent of political unrest.  Mockingjay is all about that unrest.  Uprisings are occurring in all twelve districts, and war is being fought outright.  The battle for the country between the rebellion, led by survivors in District 13, and the Capitol has begun.  It is ruthless, violent, and matches what readers should expect in the world imagined by author Suzanne Collins.

It’s hard reviewing the third book of a trilogy without revealing key events in the other two, so I won't summarize much at all.  I will say that the action scenes are as intense as ever and vividly described.  Even more than in the other books, Katniss - and readers - emotionally deal with questions of what is right, who to trust, and how to act.

Yes, I do recommend Mockingjay, though not as enthusiastically as the other books in the trilogy.  My concern is that some young readers who successfully read the first two may be surprised by Mockingjay’s tension, death, violence and war.

But that’s so difficult to say!  How could readers (how could I?) not expect a war in Panem to be exactly what Collins describes?  If we accept a world where children are sent off to battle to the death at the command of the Capitol, we must accept - and expect - the way the war plays out.  I’m honestly not sure if I’m more bothered by the events of the novel or that I somehow didn’t expect it.  Not that I imagined everything to end happily ever after, but I admit I was naively ill-prepared for the grave events of the trilogy’s conclusion.

The conclusion no doubt wraps up everything in need of wrapping from the first two novels.  Every reader wonders what happens next when finishing a book, of course, but authors can’t continue a story forever.  Readers need to draw their own optimistic or pessimistic conclusions as they see fit.

In this case I’m going with optimistic.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games is one of a handful of books from recent years that I would immediately identify as one of my favorites.  Catching Fire continues Suzanne Collins' amazing story, and Mockingjay, released today, brings the series to its conclusion.

So we’ll post this review, grab a copy of Mockingjay, and hide out far away from the Internet and all its nasty spoilers.  (If you need me, I’ll be in the basement.)

After surviving the 74^th Annual Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen is beginning to settle into life back in District Twelve.  She now lives with her mother and sister in the Victor’s Village with District Twelve’s previous survivors of the Hunger Games. (It's a small neighborhood.) But Katniss dreads the upcoming Victory Tour where she must travel - or be paraded by the Capital - to the other eleven districts.

Before she leaves, and adding to her dismay, Katniss receives a visit from President Snow himself.  The president delivers news of potential uprisings in other districts along with several thinly veiled threats.  Unintentionally, it appears the way Katniss survived the Hunger Games has given people across the districts … let's see ... what could it be … hope?  Now she’s instructed to do whatever necessary to stop it.

And just in case she’s unable to slow this new hope, this hope that’s catching fire across Panem, the Capital has a few surprises prepared for Katniss, her friends and family, and the previous Hunger Games victors.  The 75^th Hunger Games is quickly approaching, and every twenty-five years the Capital holds a Quarter Quell.  The 25^th anniversary declared that each district was to hold an election to choose their tributes.  In other words each district was ordered to select the children likely to die.  The 50^th anniversary declared that each district was to send twice as many tributes, two male and two female each.

What does the Capital have in store for the 75^th anniversary?  Might it include Katniss, the girl responsible for the unrest throughout Panem?  Might the Capital want to send a message to Katniss and the nation reminding them of the Capital’s authority?

Of course they do.  The Capital will do anything - they established the Hunger Games, didn’t they? - to repeat their message to Panem: “We are in control.”

But are they?

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

An alternate history.  A possible future.  Regardless of how you look at Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, the conclusion is this: Whoa, cool book!

Let’s take a look at all three:

An alternate history – In 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated.  Their deaths, coupled with other circumstances in Europe, brought about the beginning of World War I.  Instead of three children, Leviathan gives Franz Ferdinand and his wife only one son, Aleksandar.  Whisked away in the night after his parents’ deaths, Alek dodges the pursuing Germans in an attempt to reach neutral Switzerland.

A possible future – Alek escapes in a Cyclop Stormwalker, a two-legged machine created by Austro-Hungarians and Germans.  Clankers, as they are known, have created all kinds of machinery including aeroplanes and fortified walkers, one an eight-legged, thousand ton frigate called the Herkules. 

Deryn Sharp, called Dylan, works for the British Empire who, allied with France, are called Darwinists.  They have harnessed and mixed different creatures’ DNA to create new “beasties” designed for specific roles.  Bats that fire ammunition, bees that provide food, and a whale that flies thanks to hydrogen filled sacs like jellyfish.  (Or something like that.)  This creation is Leviathan. 

Whoa, cool book! – From Alek’s late night escape (Is it a kidnapping?  A daring escape?) to Deryn Sharp’s transformation from fifteen-year-old girl to a sixteen year old boy enlisted in the British Service named Dylan Sharp, Leviathan is a fast paced adventure on two fronts.  Readers follow Alek’s dash for the Switzerland border, his crew’s thievery of necessities, and Alek’s own mistakes that nearly give him away as the son of the assassinated Archduke.  At the same time readers read about Deryn/Dylan’s enlistment, how she nearly sailed solo across the English Channel on her first day, and came to be a valued middy on the Leviathan. 

Eventually Alek and Deryn’s paths cross.  Just as Alek and his companions think they’ve reached safety from the war, the war comes to them.  Darwinists and Clankers are all around, each thinking their creations are superior and neither trusting the other.  Even more important is that Alek and Deryn must trust each other in order to survive and escape.

There’s a lot of reading here, and as the end of the book got closer, the end of the war got further and further away.  This bugs the heck out of me – thinking that a story simply cannot reach its resolution in the pages that are left while I’m still reading.  Turns out I didn’t know that Leviathan is the first book in a trilogy – Whoa, cool trilogy! – with Behemoth coming out in October 2010 and Goliath in October 2011.

Countdown by Deborah Wiles

It is Friday, October 19, 1962.  Eleven-year-old Franny wonders why her teacher skips her during read aloud time.  She wonders why Jimmy, who picks his nose at recess, gets selected to read instead of her.  She wonders which friends to join at recess after forgetting her latest Nancy Drew.

Then the air-raid siren goes off.  Her wonderings become one certainty: We are all about to die.

Countdown takes place over the next twelve days, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Author Deborah Wiles does a great job of showing the fear that permeated society at the time.  There’s news broadcasts and President Kennedy’s address to the nation and duck and cover drills.  The fear is heightened for Franny – and readers – because of her family’s military connections.

Along with societal fears, there are normal coming-of-age issues as well.  Why does her younger brother get her father’s attention and a promise of playing ball in the yard?  Why is her sister allowed to close her bedroom door?  Why is her best friend acting that way?  And what about that new/old boy across the street?

Countdown is billed as a “documentary novel” with nonfiction interspersed within the narrative.  Many of the nonfiction bits relate directly to the story, items like a fallout shelter handbook, news quotes, Bert the Turtle, mushroom clouds, and photos of Fidel Castro, Presidents Kennedy and Truman, and even Nancy Drew.  But some seem present only in an attempt to flesh out the time period.  There are pictures of James Bond, Cassius Clay, Sandy Koufax, and Lucy and Ricky.

I found Countdown fascinating, but I’m hesitant about how the documentary novel idea will translate to younger readers.  If I’m one of today’s 11-year-olds, I’m looking at the picture of Peter, Paul, and Mary with the words “what a wonderful world this would be” and thinking, who’re these guys?  I’d have no clue of the significance of Richard Nixon saying, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around any more” in 1963.  I’d be wondering why there’s a picture of Rocky and Bullwinkle (who?) with a news item about Kennedy and Khrushchev establishing a direct telecommunications line between Washington and Moscow.

Actually, I’m wondering about that one as it is.

It’s obvious that Deborah Wiles has put incredible amounts of time into Countdown, the first of three companion novels, and there are plenty of signs of what’s to come.  Many of the nonfiction parts reference the Civil Rights movement, a possible indication of how Franny’s older sister plans to make the world a better place.  I am amazed at the detail, the wide range of cultural references, and the novel’s uniqueness.  I recommend it, hesitantly, believing that grown-up readers of children’s literature will like it more than the children.

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

I was hooked immediately. I’m not sure if the hook would work for all readers, but for me it was perfect. “From the snap of the ball to the snap of the first bone is closer to four seconds than to five. One Mississippi: The quarterback of the Washington Redskins, Joe Theismann …” That’s all I needed. In that instant I was twelve years old, watching Monday Night Football, and seeing that unforgettable play over and over in my mind. If you’ve seen The Blind Side in theaters, you’ve seen the play. The movie starts exactly as the book does.

Unless of course, like me, you couldn’t watch.

There’s much more football in the book than the movie, and that’s more than fine by me. Bill Walsh, Joe Montana, Lawrence Taylor, Bill Parcells - these are names that drew me into football in my childhood. They are also names that provide the back story for why a six-five, 350 pound man is worth his weight in gold in the NFL.

Michael Oher’s story has become pretty familiar in the last year. You’ve at least seen the movie trailer on TV. Maybe you’ve seen the features produced by ESPN or NFL Network leading up the 2009 NFL Draft. Michael Oher, now a starting lineman for the Baltimore Ravens, lived homeless and basically parentless until, mostly by chance, he ended up at Briarcrest Christian School and had random run-ins with the Tuohy family.

Big Mike, by simply seeking warmth in the school gym one cold night, ends up on the Tuohy family’s ten thousand dollar couch. They share their Thanksgiving dinner with him. Mrs. Tuohy buys him clothing. More and more frequently they offer him a place to stay. Soon they offer him a permanent place in the Tuohy family. They legally adopt him.

The story of Michael’s (he hates being called Big Mike) journey from homeless and education-less to NFL starter is truly amazing. More people than just the Tuohy family offer their time and talents to give Michael what he needs. Tutoring, coaching, patience, and time, time, time. In the book author Michael Lewis takes a more methodical approach to telling the story. The movie’s approach is more emotional. Both, however, tell an incredible story and neither should be missed.

And I don’t say that very often about movies based on books.

Daisy Kutter: The Last Train by Kazu Kibuishi

On page one of The Last Train, readers meet Daisy Kutter, owner of a general store, a severe scowl, and too much time on her hands. In her boredom she pulls a suction cup dart gun from the shelf. Then another. Daisy is also the owner of serious gun handling skills. She plasters everything in the store with rubber darts.

“Old habits die hard, don’t they?” asks Tom, the sheriff, as he arrives and witnesses the one-sided shootout.

Tom asks Daisy to help him co-marshal a poker game at a local watering hole that evening. Marshal? “You’ve got to be kidding, Tom. You’re still trying to turn me over to the dark side. To settle down like you. When you know I’d still rather play.” The look on Tom’s face shows his resignation to Daisy’s true character.

“Old habits die hard, don’t they?” Daisy throws Tom's question back at him.

Daisy makes the acquaintance of some colorful characters at the poker game who later make her an offer she can’t refuse. Rob one more train. Demonstrate that the latest security robots (Robots? More on that later.) are no match for an experienced train robber like Daisy. The reward? The return of all her poker losses – a significant sum – plus $350,000.

At first glance the story appears to be set in a traditional western town. But as Daisy walks out of her store, there is a 20 foot tall robot walker (picture this guy with four legs) in the street. One of the poker players is a robot, and when offered a job, Daisy clearly states, “I don’t work with machines.” No explanation is given – future, alternate history – but the differences fit seamlessly into the story and are immediately accepted by readers.

While Kazu Kibuishi’s Amulet books are wonderful for middle elementary readers, I’d be sure to keep Daisy Kutter on the young adult shelves. A run-down cat house and a female acquaintance who lives there, a bit of colorful language, an old flame, and some gruesome shootout scenes make appearances. Nevertheless, The Last Train is an action packed, train robbing, saloon door swinging, Old West story. With a futuristic twist.

For more information about reading graphic novels, and to see where I was introduced to Daisy Kutter, I highly recommend this article.

Public Enemies by Bryan Burrough

I wrote the following statement before I saw the movie, but nevertheless, at that time I naively believed my uneducated opinion to be true:

The book is better.

Now I’ve seen the movie and I must, to be honest and fair, revise the previous statement. It now reads:

Why even try? I mean really! To say “the book is better” is like saying “Dillinger robbed banks.” No kidding. The movie is to the book like your little brother’s piggy bank is to the Federal Reserve. Which one gives gangsters the bigger reward?

Yeah, that’s a bit more accurate.

I've been planning on seeing Public Enemies ever since it was announced the John Dillinger movie would be filmed in Wisconsin, and historical sites, including one in my hometown, were scouted as possible locations. Then late last summer I had breakfast at Little Bohemia Lodge in Manitowish, Wisconsin, site of a bungled FBI raid on Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and others. Before my biscuits and gravy arrived, I read the brief history of the lodge and the failed raid printed on my placemat.

But now I’ve read the book, which includes a bit more information than the placemat, and it is phenomenal. Painstakingly researched by author Bryan Burrough and incredibly detailed, Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-1934 is much more than another John Dillinger story. Readers learn the truth about numerous criminals of the time. For example:

Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd gained national notoriety due to media speculation after the Kansas City Massacre, a crime he didn’t commit, and by spring of 1933 he had “withdrawn from bank robbing altogether, preferring to spend his days baking pies in his cousins’ kitchens.” (He didn’t, of course, retire as a baker.)

Bonnie and Clyde were far from the glamorized characters portrayed by Hollywood. Their crimes were small compared to their contemporaries – one bank robbery earned them only $80, another attempted job was on a bank that had been closed for weeks. Bonnie nearly died in a car accident, and as they became more notorious, “they gave up bathing and normal hygiene. Their clothes were dirty. They smelled.” Hardly glamorous.

Ma Barker, portrayed by J. Edgar Hoover as the criminal mastermind of the Barker Gang, was more interested in jigsaw puzzles than crime. (But died from an FBI bullet to the head nevertheless.)

George F. Barnes was a dreamer and a joker, a nervous man who sometimes vomited before bank jobs. He and his wife were behind the kidnapping of Charles Urschel and the $200,000 ransom, but he missed the first cash drop, probably because he flooded his car. The most impressive part of his legacy may be his nickname: Machine Gun Kelly.

It has been said that truth is stranger than fiction. Public Enemies shows that truth can be better than fiction. Hollywood would be hard pressed to concoct a cast of characters with stories as interesting and intertwined as those on both sides of the 1933-1934 War on Crime. In fact, even when Hollywood is presented with a golden story in an open vault, it still makes off with only a buck-two-eighty. (For more thoughts on the movie, click here.)

Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-1934 is not to be missed. While the movie includes plenty of high speed chases and shoot-em-ups, the book explains how they managed to rob banks, as Dillinger once said, in “one minute, forty seconds. Flat.” It explains how the gangs were able to repeatedly evade the law, and especially how the FBI, just a fledgling organization being created on the fly to fight the War on Crime, often times made it easier for the gangs to remain free. Public Enemies is an eye-opening view through the bars of a life of crime and into the offices of the men trying to fight it.

The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer

Life couldn’t be more boring for Jack. He helps his father, Giles Crookleg, tend to the farm, wishing his hard work and dedication would be acknowledged, all while listening to his father’s never ending sing-song for his younger sister, Lucy, lost princess of a faraway land.

Right. Jack works his tail off for nary a thank you, while Lucy does exactly the opposite of what father asks with no consequences. Jack’s fortunes turn when the local Bard asks Jack to be his apprentice. After initially refusing, Giles Crookleg grudgingly agrees, encouraged by the Bard’s promise that Jack will have no fun, that he will “work like a donkey in a lead mine,” and that other village boys will come to aid with the farm.

Jack learns from the Bard to see the world differently, the beginning of his study of the life force, and the ability to call upon it for magic. His studies are unfortunately cut short by the attacks of vicious Northmen – Vikings – who kidnap him and Lucy. Jack is to be sold as a thrall (slave) and Lucy is to be a gift for Queen Frith, a half-troll, from Thorgil, a shield maiden seeking the queen’s approval.

Olaf One-Brow, the leader of this band of Northmen, decides to keep Jack as his own when he learns of Jack’s bard training. His own personal skald, a bard to create songs praising his abilities, ensuring his fame will never die.

Eventually, Olaf and his crew, Thorgil the shield maiden, Jack, and the crow Bold Heart are sent on a quest to drink from Mimir’s Well. Drinking the song-mead from the well is the only thing that will help Jack save Lucy. They travel to Jotunheim, land of the trolls, and face giant spiders, dragons, a troll-bear, and a deadly, frozen landscape. Oh yeah. And trolls.

I was astounded at how many times the actions of Olaf One-Brow and his band of berserkers disgusted me, only to find myself liking Olaf, sometimes even feeling sympathetic toward him, and sometimes even in the very next chapter. Then, when once again reminded of Olaf’s true nature, I found myself surprised! At least I shared these feelings with Jack, who, despite his growing abilities as a bard, hasn’t completely grown accustomed to this way of life, seemingly the opposite of that on his sheltered family farm.

Nancy Farmer has created an entire new world, complete with history and politics, all based on real history and legend. In fact, three pages of sources are listed about Norse myths, legends, and history. Readers will be quickly drawn into this historical fantasy world inhabited by characters with names like Ivar the Boneless, Gizur Thumb-Crusher, Einar the Ear-Hoarder, and Sven the Vengeful and creatures like jotuns (trolls), monstors, and various unclassifiables like half-ogres and shapeshifters.

I've had fourth graders read The Sea of Trolls with success, albeit strong readers, and know young adult readers eagerly antipating the release of The Islands of the Blessed, the conclusion of the trilogy. The Sea of Trolls is a remarkable book, with a wide interest level, that should be recommended to fans of the Inheritance Trilogy, the Percy Jackson series, the Wingfeather Saga, and The Lord of the Rings or readers ready to move on from series like the Spiderwick Chronicles and The Chronicles of Narnia.

Skeleton Creek by Patrick Carman

It took me a while to read Skeleton Creek simply because I'm a wimp. There. I said it, and I can't take it back. The day is full of teaching, the evening is full of family, and the only time to read is at night. When it's dark. And, due to the aforementioned wimpiness, I wouldn't read it at night.

So for one day only I decided to blow off reading conferences (another admission) during reader's workshop time and read surrounded by my protective fourth graders.

Skeleton Creek is the journal of fifteen-year-old Ryan McCray. He begins by describing his past two weeks in the hospital, and then proceeds to the events that caused his stay. He and his best friend Sarah Fincher had gone to explore a mysterious, retired gold-mining dredge in the woods where a worker, Joe Bush, had reportedly died. Ryan seriously injures his leg after breaking through a crumbling safety rail and falling.

Ryan and Sarah have now been forbidden from seeing or contacting each other, but in the age of the Internet, contact is hard to stop. Ryan writes. Sarah emails video updates of her continued investigation, available to Ryan only (and readers) at SarahFincher.com via the passwords she sends.

The first video shows Sarah’s first visit to the dredge and their first evidence that someone (the ghost of Old Joe Bush?) is inside. The second video shoes the events surrounding Ryan’s accident. In subsequent videos Sarah lays out her findings – enhanced sound, image comparisons, interviews, and personal commentary. Readers get Ryan’s side of the story by reading his journal. Sarah’s part is presented through her videos and occasional email. It’s a unique concept for a book, this switching between text and video, and readers will enjoy it immensely.

The story continues through the small town of Skeleton Creek. Local history and residents become entwined in Ryan and Sarah’s story as their research unearths a secret society called The Crossbones, cryptic messages in the local newspaper, odd symbols, Ryan’s father, the new park ranger in town, and even the shotgun-toting librarian - and all somehow point to the dredge.

The online element of Skeleton Creek is enhanced by additional information and sites. Easter Eggs (click a window, click a doorway) occasionally appear on SarahFincher.com. Readers question whether Patrick Carman's story is based on real events at SkeletonCreekIsReal.com, and present their evidence. Speculation, news, rumors, and discussion forums are available at SkeletonCreekFans.com. Want to do a little research on your own? Wikipedia includes entries about Old Joe Bush and the original Sumpter Valley Gold Dredge.

Okay, back to the wimpiness. Sarah’s first two video are the creepiest. I could have handled the rest of them at night. Really. I could.

Until that last one…

Anyways, here’s the book trailer. Remember...it's creepy.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Great books are like a hike up a steep hill with a spectacular view. The heart rate climbs. Breathing quickens. The desire to finish grows, along with the effort put forth to reach that end. And the payoff is remarkable. The Graveyard Book does all these things. I’ve read and reread and considered it greatly for this review. The more I do, the more I’m convinced Neil Gaiman’s book is an incredible choice for the 2009 Newbery Medal.

As I read The Graveyard Book, I felt there were four distinct parts.

Part One: Chapter 1, How Nobody Came to the Graveyard, begins with the creepiest opening in recent memory. "There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife." The whole page is black, save the chapter title, that one line of text, and the knife-wielding hand. A baby boy, 18 months old, has crawled out of his bed. He proceeds down the stairs, through the front door, into the street, and up the hill to protective hands of the graveyard residents.

His family is murdered by the man Jack. The boy is unharmed.

Part Two: Chapters 2-5 each read as a short story - indeed, Chapter 4, The Witch's Headstone, was first published as a short story - and each chapter gives important information about the boy's life in the graveyard. Adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Owens, longtime occupants of the graveyard, and looking like nobody in particular, the boy becomes Nobody Owens, Bod for short.

Five-year-old Bod meets a friend, Scarlett, who is visiting the graveyard, now more park than cemetary. Readers learn the differences between a normal child and one granted the Freedom of the Graveyard. Readers are also introduced to the Sleer, an ancient graveyard resident.

Six-year-old Bod is introduced to this graveyard’s ghoul-gate (every graveyard has a ghoul-gate), what lies beyond the gate, and the lengths to which the dead will go to preserve his life.

A ten-year-old Bod meets a resident witch and begins a friendship. He continues his education, both academic and spiritual. He witnesses and participates in the Danse Macabre.

Part Three: A brief interlude, The Convocation, reminds readers that the man Jack still exists and still wants – needs, in fact – Bod dead. His business associates, for lack of a better term, remind him of his failure and responsibility to finish the business he started.

Part Four: Chapters 6-8 read more as the novel I expected. Bod makes more and more excursions into the world outside the graveyard where, for the most part, he is unprotected. He goes to school, meets bullies, new friends, old friends, and police officers. But all these outside experiences, though beneficial to a boy quickly becoming a young man, make it increasingly difficult for Bod to remain anonymous and hidden from the man Jack.

Anticipation that steadily builds and an inescapable sense of dread work together so readers don’t see the climax coming as much as they feel it coming. So get yourself a copy of The Graveyard Book, block out a chunk of time, and set your bookmark aside.

And make sure the lights are on. Brightly.

The Trouble Begins at 8 by Sid Fleischman

"Mark Twain was born fully grown, with a cheap cigar clamped between his teeth."

So begins Chapter 1 of The Trouble Begins at 8. What? Fully grown? How can that be? And a cheap cigar? Huh? Readers will be engaged from the start, questions quickly forming about Mark Twain, no doubt an author many of them are being "forced" to read in school. An author who, if students are given the opportunity and proper resources, may prove to be equally as interesting as the classic American literature he created.

In the preceding preface, Sid Fleischman offers other intriguing anecdotes. A Nevada minor once introduced Mark Twain by saying, “I don’t know anything about this man. I only know two things about him. One is, he has never been in jail. And the other is, I don’t know why.” Later Fleischman reveals the inspiration for the book’s title. Twain’s first posters advertising his speaking engagements “proclaimed that the doors would open at seven. ‘The Trouble to begin at 8 o’clock.’”

Sid Fleischman does his best to separate the fact from the fiction in Mark Twain’s life, a task in which Twain himself apparently didn’t put too much stock. His autobiography, as noted numerous times, included certain exaggerations and/or additions as well as more than a few exclusions.

The book begins with young Samuel Clemens’ first work in newspaper, where he published a banner headline declaring “TERRIBLE ACCIDENT! 500 men killed and missing!!!” followed by, in smaller type, “We had set the above head up, expecting (of course) to use it, but as the accident hasn’t happened, yet, we’ll say (To be continued.)” He also started a feud with the editor of the local competition, accusing him of “failing to drink himself to death.”

The story continues following Samuel’s life as a riverboat captain, his two weeks in the military, his travel west to Nevada, more work in newspaper, his dabblings in fiction, and the next (and the next and the next...) get-rich-quick scheme. He travels the world and creates imaginary travel companions, passing them off as real. Slowly but surely readers witness the death of Samuel Clemens and the birth of Mark Twain.

Each story is as funny as the next, and each reads as a bit of humor concocted by the man himself. Teachers, get yourself a copy of this book and be sure to use it alongside Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Young readers will enjoy this creatively written story about Mark Twain as much as any story by Mark Twain.

The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle

The events of The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom span 50 years, from the childhood of Rosa and Lieutenant Death to the end of the War for Independence. Rosa is a child who learns the healing powers of the plants of the forest. Lieutenant Death is the son of a slave catcher who learns from his father how to hunt escaped slaves. These two characters share the narration, all told in verse, in Part One (1850-1851).

Part Two tells the events of the Ten Years' War (1868-1878), again with Rosa and Lieutenant Death (now adults) sharing narrative duties, adding Jose, Rosa's husband, and two pages from a Lieutenant-General from Spain. Rosa tells of healing the sick and the injured. Lieutenant Death continues his father's job of hunting slaves.

Parts Three and Four continue through the the Little War (1878-1880) and the War of Independence (1895-1898). Silvia, a young girl who lost her entire family in a reconcentration camp, is added to the narrative mix, expressing her desires to learn the art of healing from Rosa, now a Cuban legend.

Part Five (1898-1899) closes with the events after the War of Independence, telling of Spain's exit, and the United States' involvement and subsequent occupation. Characters are still left with a desire for freedom, feeling they have only exchanged one "foreign tyrant" for another.

It's a book about war. All the events you'd think should be in there are there: atrocities, death, murder, revenge, betrayal. There's also Rosa's desire to do good, always good, healing everyone, both friend and enemy, and never accepting payment, for healing comes from God. Events are told in only enough detail so the imagination will fill in the rest, often times with the most gruesome details. I'm not big on filling in gruesome details of war with my imagination.

Whether or not The Surrender Tree is a Newbery-quality distinguished book is a debate I'll leave to others. Regardless of the results of their debate, I don't see this book flying off classroom library shelves or being passed student to student.

Scat by Carl Hiaasen

What kid hasn’t wondered how life would change if a certain teacher would just disappear? Especially if that teacher is like Bunny Starch? Mrs. Starch humiliates Duane Scrod Jr. (a.k.a. “Smoke”) in class, assigning him a five hundred word essay on pimples. His pimples. Her relentlessness made me, as a teacher, uncomfortable to say the least. It’ll make kids flat-out furious. Smoke can only take so much, so as Mrs. Starch points at him accusingly with her #2 Ticonderoga, he calmly takes a chunk out of it. With his teeth. Bites half off, right out of her hand, chews it up, and swallows. Splinters, graphite, the whole works.

And the next day during a field trip to Black Vine Swamp, 1) She disappears. 2) A wildfire happens to start. 3) The kid nicknamed Smoke, with a history of starting fires who recently threatened the now disappeared teacher, wasn’t with the class.

It’s hard not to compare Scat with Carl Hiaasen’s other two novels for younger readers, Hoot and Flush. They’re all similar – set in Florida, money grubbing antagonists, middle/high school protagonists a little braver/wiser/upright that the average adolescent, and strong environmental themes. Scat adds another layer with the war in Iraq.

Scat grabs readers’ attention with the first line. “The day before Mrs. Starch vanished, her third-period biology students trudged silently, as always, into the classroom.” The teacher vanished? Like, poof, and she’s gone? By the end of the chapter, readers see how that might possibly be a good thing.

While more mystery than comedy, Scat still contains plenty of humor. An oil worker gets glued to a cypress tree, painted orange, sans clothing. Wendell Waxmo, substitute biology teacher, always teaches page 117 on Monday and 263 on Fridays, no exceptions, regardless of the subject matter. There’s plenty of funny, most enjoyably, how the antagonists finally get what’s coming.

Scat has much more mystery than the other books. Where is Mrs. Starch? Why is her car still traveling around town with mysterious drivers? If she’s gone, how is she sending mail and changing her voice mail greeting? If she has no family, how can she claim a family emergency?

Main character Nick’s father, an Army reservist serving in Iraq, is injured in a Humvee attack and loses his right arm. Nick not only has been pulled into the Mrs. Starch mystery – now including endangered panthers and an oil company – but also tries to learn more about his father’s injury by trying to do everything with only one arm.

Scat is a totally engaging novel, one that will get and hold readers’ attention, beginning to end. Readers want to fight for what’s right, defend the environment, stop greed, support their families, aid their friends, all of them right along with the main characters. Readers will also realize the danger in too quickly judging those around them.

Savvy by Ingrid Law

Birthdays don't sneak up on anybody. Whether they are either eagerly anticipated or grudgingly accepted, we know they are coming. But the Beaumont children look to their thirteenth birthday with more anticipation, more excitement, and more curiosity than your average tween becoming a teen.

At thirteen, you see, Beaumonts receive their savvy.

A Beaumont family savvy is a unique ability, a power, beyond normal human capacity. Mibs, short for Mississippi, is awaiting the arrival of her savvy, just days before her thirteenth birthday. Will she blow out the candles on her cake only to have fires die throughout a four county radius? Or will her puffed cheeks cause her to start floating toward the ceiling?

The novel’s plot is simple enough. Two days before her birthday, her father is in a car accident, leaving him in a coma ninety miles south in Salina, Kansas. Mibs knows her soon-to-arrive savvy will be just what Poppa needs to wake up if only she can get to Salina in time. She stows away on a pink Bible delivery bus that’s headed that direction, but before it can leave, she is discovered and joined by her brothers, Fish and Samson, and the local preacher’s kids, Will Junior and Roberta.

Predictable difficulties arise. The bus travels in the wrong direction. They are discovered by Lester, bus driver and Bible salesman. There are stops for deliveries and dinner and a maid in distress that delay their arrival in Salina. Their faces are plastered on the news as missing children.

What makes Ingrid Law's book so enjoyable is the Beaumont savvies. Oldest brother Rocket could keep the lights on when the power went out and zap his siblings from across the room. Strong emotions, however, cause power surges that leave blown circuits in his wake. Second brother Fish changes the weather, causing a hurricane on his thirteenth birthday and an ever-present threat of wind and rain. Mom has the tendency to do things perfectly.

As readers learn more about the family, more savvies are revealed. An aunt who steps back twenty minutes in time with every sneeze. A cousin who melts ice with her glare. Grandpa, with a low rumble deep in the Earth, can create land. Grandma could catch radio waves and store them in canning jars. One aunt could open any lock, another could get people to do whatever she wanted.

But Beaumonts are taught from early on that they’re just like other people. “We get born, and sometime later we die. And in between, we’re happy and sad, we feel love and we feel fear, we eat and we sleep and we hurt like everyone else.” And in Mibs’ search for her own savvy and quest for her father’s health, she and her family experience them all.