Uh oh...am I stuck on another series?

I think I am!  This time I used the Comixology app and bought and read another of Rick Geary's graphic nonfiction books in his Treasury of Victorian Murder series.  The Case of Madeleine Smith was interesting because Geary is simply a great storyteller and illustrator and also because I had never heard of Madeleine Smith and also because, even after reading it, I can't be totally sold on the idea that she did it.  Good stuff here.

The Poetry of Baseball

Shakespeare Bats Cleanup is also a baseball story.  And a story of loss.  And a story of growing up.  And self-discovery.  And it is yet another great book from Ron Koertge.  Told in poetry, it is the story of  a young teen who loves baseball and is quite the star.  When mono keeps him off of the field for many weeks, he turns to poetry out of boredom.  But it turns out, poetry isn't quite so bad! Through his poetry he talks about the loss of his mother, his relationship with his father (who seems like a really nice dude) and a new love interest.  Great stuff and I can't wait to read the second one.  I wish that I could have read it all in one sitting, but life was a bit crazy, so I had to break it up a bit, even though it is super short and makes you want to keep reading and reading.  I would imagine that it is even more powerful if read all at once, so try to carve out an hour, uninterrupted to read this little, powerful book.

He was the devil, you know, in the White City

When I read The Devil in the White City, I was blown away.  What a great, great book.  And the devil, referred to in that book as H.H. Holmes, mostly, was a fascinating, foul and frightening character from history.  I had never heard of him before, even though he is considered by many to be America's first serial killer. The Beast of Chicago:  an account of the life and crimes of Henry W. Mudgett, known to the world as H.H. Holmes focuses on the monster himself.

Nothing is Black and White (SPOILERS)

I had a visceral reaction when I realized that this book was about a deserter from WW2.  The thing is, had it been the Vietnam War, okay, sure, we have heard that all before, right?  And as Waylon sang:
and the men
who could not fight 
in a war
that didn't seem right
you let them come home,
America
But WW2?  That was the "Good War," right?  Did ANYONE desert from that?  Is this fantasy? What? What?  What kind of person would do that?
And then I felt like a real jerk and fool for thinking that way.
See the thing is this.
If you are a Christian, which I am.  So for me, as a Christian, killing is always wrong.  Christ prohibits it.  There really is no "just war" no matter what Augustine said.  Augustine wasn't Christ.
Turns out there were conscientious objectors in WW2.  The thing is, the enemy was so clear in WW2. Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito were evil, evil men.  The hideousness of their actions can't be described. But as Jesus said, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul."  Ah, man...it is so hard.  As you know, I am a fierce, fierce patriot.  I have so much respect and thanks for our veterans and servicemen and women.  And I am not sitting in judgement of those who follow Christ and serve in the armed forces.  No, no, no.
See.
See how much this books makes one think??
This is a fantastic novel.  So not preachy.  No easy answers.  And no cliches.  Fantastic.
There is just so much in here.
Stepping on the Cracks should be required reading.   And then required discussion should follow.

Stoner and Spaz

 Stoner and Spaz is the first book in maybe just a two book deal about a girl who is a "stoner" and a guy who refers to himself as a "spaz." And I didn't chose it because of the cover, because I can't quite figure out what that IS on the cover!  I picked it up because of Ron Koertge who wrote books I have very, very much enjoyed. And I did enjoy this one, very much, too!  Koertge must be brilliant. He sure writes like a genius.
Ben is a WASP who lives with his VERY WASPy grandmother and he also has CP and for that reason, he considers himself a "spaz" and has always been a loner.  One of his favorite things to do is go to an old fashioned movie theater and see old movie, by himself.  One night though the very controversial and very drug-addicted Colleen starts talking to him.  They start a complicated friendship.  What a great, great book.  I can't wait to read the second one.  It is set in LA, which always adds something awesome to a book.

Another Wonderful Book from CPC

I have always wanted to read The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963, but the cover was terrible.  Now there is a new cover and I like this one better!  This is the one that is over there <- .="" nbsp="" p="">This book was just incredible.  Now I never caught the significance of the title.  Had I thought about Birmingham, Alabama and what happened in 1963, I would not have been so shocked by what happens in the story.  It just didn't hit me and so there I was, reading along, this wonderful book about a loving, incredible family. And then, wow.  The book became even more powerful and it just blew me away. So much happened that year in Birmingham, of course, but how the church bombing was incorporated into this novel was just so profound.  Another must-read for everyone.

James A. Garfield

Last year I read The Destiny of the Republic and loved it.   As I mentioned back when I reviewed it, it made me want to visit his home in Mentor, Ohio.  Well, finally I did!  Below are some pictures from the trip that I made with mom and Lobster!  It was so worth it!  The tour was excellent. At the gift shop I picked up the book The Fatal Bullet:   the assassination of James A. Garfield.  It was a really, really well done graphic non-fiction and now I want to read the whole series that Rick Geary has done.

Another Really Great School Story!

Andrew Clements, man.  He is GOOD GOOD GOOD.   Lost and Found was another excellent one.  It is about twin boys who are entering a new school and they pretend that there is only one boy instead of two!  The guys move to Cleveland over Labor Day weekend.  One twin is sick on the first day of school and his brother discovers that the school has messed up and combined both boys' records together so instead of being Jay and Ray, there is only Jay!  They get the idea to play it out and see how long they can be one only child instead of half of twins.  Really good!

Another New Friend!

Here he is!  EllRay Jakes!  Wow!  Yes!  Another friend for Ty, Roscoe and Alvin and Billy Miller!  I was at a book fair I saw EllRay Jakes is NOT a Chicken was there.  Yes, I was sucked in by the super-cute cover.  I didn't even know it was a series!  After reading the first, I read the rest right away.  I even ended up personally buying two of them.  I listened to EllRay Jakes is a Rock Star, which was read in a great, great and funny way!  Listen to a sample.  I thought it was dead-on!  The latest one, EllRay Jakes is Magic, I had to buy the ebook because I couldn't wait for the hardcopy!  Awesome! Awesome!  Awesome!

While I Didn't Hate It...

I just didn't think Iggie's House was that great.  As you can see from my Judy Blume reviews, she really isn't a big hero of mine, but I have enjoyed some of her books very much.  This one is similar to AYTGIMM in that none of the characters are likable at all, really. It's the story of a girl who sees the evils of racism first-hand when an African American family moves into her previously all-white neighborhood.  It is just okay.

Heard it All Before...

Joyce Carol Oates maybe has just been writing too long.  Maybe she just doesn't have anything more to say.  I have liked some of her stuff, I think.  I can't remember anything that I read, but I know there was a short story that I liked, but man, High Crime Area was just so so so preachy.  Oates is an evangelist for non-believers and that is fine, but to be a good evangelist you have to have something to say.  Oates just says the same thing over and over and over and over and well, you get the idea.  I love that the cover is super cheesy!  At first when I saw it I thought, "This is kind of a cheesy cover for such a Woman of Letters!" but having read it, I find it perfect.  Nothing new here.  

Do You Want to Know a Secret

Secrets and Lies is the second book in the Truth or Dare series and I have to say, it kept my interest, but I think I have figured it out.  Maybe.  I don't know!  But I think I figured out the bad guy/girl! 

How I waited and waited

for The One.  The Selection was a great series.  I have read some criticism that this final book was too rushed and I see where folks are coming from, but truly, I can't complain about this series at all.  I am glad it ended with three books instead of being dragged on into a fourth book.  And I feel like it was much better than say, the Matched series, which really could have been done in one book, two at the most.   It also wasn't too short, like Bumped!  But I loved Bumped, I did.  So this was kind of like Baby Bear's porridge, chair and bed, in Goldilocks' opinion.  It was just right!

A new state!

On my trip to Minneapolis went through a new state!  Iowa!  And so while I was there, I needed to listen to a book set in Iowa and I came across Grasshopper Jungle.  Wow!  What a find!
Somewhere I read this book as being described as one that takes on real-world problems in a Science Fiction setting.  No one could describe it any better.  This book is pretty darn wild.  Not for everyone, that is for sure.  But I did enjoy it a lot. I don't think I ever would have made it through, reading it, but listening to it was very enjoyable.
Yes, it is about the end of the world.  Yes, it is about giant, indestructible grasshoppers.  But it is so much more.  It's also about Polish immigrants.  It's also about discovering one's sexuality.  It's also about poverty.  Small towns.  Wow, it is just about a LOT of stuff!  Bizarre.  But pretty brilliant, I think.   This is my first Andrew Smith book, but I will try another one, for sure.

A MUST-READ

Now I know, I know, I KNOW I say this a lot.  But seriously, Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy is a must-read for everyone.   That cover over there is terrible.  Terrible.  The one under it is much better. Still, no cover could be good enough for this book.  It is just unreal and fantastic.  And I have no idea what kind of experience Gary D. Schmidt, who is one of my new most favorite writers, has with churches and working in church, but man, man, man he was right on with this one.  Right on!  Unreal!  Here is a great quote, "The congregation, Minister, will tell you what it thinks and what it wants you to think."  When I first typed that in, and I am sure this was a Freudian slip, I capitalized the word congregation.  Because some congregations (or at least some people in them) think that they are holier than God.  I am not saying that the church I served was like that.  It was a lovely, lovely place.  But there were a couple of folks who could have said that very sentence right there.  I am pretty sure they did, actually.

LBATBB introduced me to the horror of what happened on Malaga Island.  I had never heard of this island or the people who lived there and were forced to leave because of the color of their skin.  This is the story of a young boy who really stands up against a whole town.  It made me cry several times.  We should be ashamed, ashamed of the way that we have treated one another.  And the way we still treat one another.  

This is an incredible, incredible story.  Read it.  Now.

Haunted

There are a lot of books about haunted places, but this book boasts that the places written about it in America's Secret Hauntings are not too well known.  Hence the whole "secret" thing!  The only places I had heard of were Danvers and the Ax Murder House, so I would say that the book was right, in my case!  I was driving back from the NAEYC Institute in Minneapolis and I drove through part of Iowa for a new route.  I had thought about heading over to Villsaca even before I started listening to this book!  The thing is, it got a recent bad review on tripadvisor, so I didn't.  Then after listening to this book, I was sorry I hadn't gone.  I was already to the Illinois line by that time.  Anyway, there is some good, gruesome stuff in here!

SPOILER!

The newt dies.
A horrible death. 
I can't believe I have recommended this book.  That will teach me, once and for all NEVER to recommend a book I haven't read.
It isn't quite as horrible as My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece, but it is bad.  Well, maybe even worse because there is no sorrow at all in the death of this newt.  The MURDER of this newt.  It is pretty much just a joke.   I am so mad, I didn't even name the book:  Stink:  the incredible shrinking kid.

Paperboy

Are there still paperboys anymore?  Around my town papers are delivered by folks in cars.  I don't know if it is like that everywhere!  I accidentally listed to The Paperboy thinking it was Paperboy and I wondered why this was so short!  I was worried that I had listened to another one of those graphic novels!  But then I kept asking people who read Paperboy, "Is it a graphic novel?  Are there a lot of pictures?"  and the answer was always, "Um...no."   So then I figured out that I had a completely different book! 
Paperboy was really, really good.  It was a slice-of-life kinda book.  A look at life in a neighborhood in Memphis in 1959 from the POV of a young teen boy who has a stutter.  I loved, loved this kid's family and the kid himself.  Vince Vawter has an author's note at the end.  What a wonderful, wonderful book.  I also learned what a U.S. Merchant Marine is! 

Christopher Paul Curtis

has become an author that I love, love, love.  Elijah of Buxton was incredible.  Christopher Paul Curtis had my heart with The Mighty Miss Malone and now I am just reading everything I can that he has written.  Elijah of Buxton had me quoting and reading out-loud to my mom.  It had me in tears.  I didn't know anything about Buxton, I am ashamed to say. 
The thing is, I have an aunt who won't read fiction at all because she says that she doesn't want to waste her time.  She only reads nonfiction because she can learn from it.  Well, I have learned so much from fiction. 
Oh man...this is a book that I want everyone to read because I just want to talk about it.  Incredible.  Everyone.  Everyone should read this beautiful book. 
As I look at the Newbery Award for that year, I am just sickened.  If this isn't 1954, then I don't know what is. 

Third Installment of the Three-Ring Rascals!

I was so super-excited to get an eARC of The Circus Goes to Sea, the third book in the Klise sisters' Three-Ring Rascal series.  I have been recommending them to everyone and all of the kids who have read them have loved them as much as I do!  When I told some of the kids that I had the review copy of this one, due out in September, they were very excited!  This is another great addition to the series and I am looking forward to the next one!  Can't wait!

Those Presbyterians....

When I read The Wednesday Wars I couldn't help but wonder if the author, Gary D. Schmidt is a Presbyterian.  He really knows them well!  I say that with all love and respect, as you know.  :)
So I read Okay for Now and loved that.  I had to read this one, in which Doug from OFN is a minor character.  TWW takes place before Doug moves to Marysville from Long Island and doesn't really feature Doug as much as his tough brother, who is a source of misery for Holling Hoodhood, the only WASP in his class and therefore the only kid who has to stay behind on Wednesday afternoons instead of going to religious education classes at the local Roman Catholic Church or synagogue.
The backdrop for this story is the Vietnam War and wow, there is a lot of powerful stuff here.  When kids come in looking for historical fiction, the tendency is for them to look for books on the American Revolutionary or Civil War and to a lesser extent, WW2, but this is one that I will push and push along with with Shooting the Moon and Countdown, One Crazy Summer and others that are from less written about time periods in history.
There is so much in this book.  The dynamic between Holling and his father, his sister's trip out west, so much more.  It is so neat to see the way that Holling develops in the book.  And it even made me want to read Shakespeare!  Fantastic book.  It also taught me what a jerk Mickey Mantle was!

What's so Wicked about Wikipedia?

I am sure there are people out there who don't like Wikipedia and probably call it Wickedpedia, but to me, there is nothing wicked about Wikipedia at all.  Wickedpedia, the book, is a different story.
First of all, great, great cover.  I've mentioned before how I always give to the wikipedia campaign at the end of the year and how good it feels just to get that silly "thank you" email, even though I know it is a programmed response, when I think about how I never did get an acknowledgement from This American Life, it just stands out to me and makes me give again (and, as I have mentioned, never give again to TAL).
But that is neither here nor there!  It has nothing to do with this new book, due out in a couple of weeks as part of the new Point Horror books from Scholastic.
First of all, the cover is terrific!  It really is.  If I saw this sitting on a library or book store shelf, it would instantly get my attention.  I will definitely order this for the library because it is coming out a good time for quick reads.
Unsurprisingly, Wickedpedia is a lot like a teen horror movie, especially when it comes to the characters:  none of them are likable and so we don't care when they are taken out in nasty ways.   Not great literature here, but not meant to be!  Although I had my suspicions when it came to the murderer, I didn't really figure it out until close to the reveal.  The book succeeds at what it tries to do:  it will keep readers turning the pages until the last.

Shine Like a Dyamonde

The Dyamonde Daniel books are pretty awesome.  I really love Nikki Grimes, so I am not surprised that I love this seres.  Now I must say, I am super sad that it doesn't seem that there are any more coming.  I really hope that there will be more!  Dyamonde would be a great friend to Alvin, Roscoe, Keena, Ty and Billy that's for sure!  Dyamonde is a love, caring, third-grader and I was sucked in right from the first book.  Great, great series.

Then Again...

When I was a kid there was a lot of mystery around Then Again, Maybe I Won't.  It was one of those books like Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret, Forever and Waiting Games.  I read the others but never Then Again.  I must say that covers of this book were just terrible.  That green one is the one I remember.  One thing that is heavily featured on the green cover and the newest one, as you can see, is the pair of binoculars.  That was what I remember most beings whispered and giggled about, that the book was about a boy who spies on his neighbor with binoculars while she gets undressed.
Once I read the book I was surprised at how little the binoculars figure in to the whole story!  The book is a lot more than just Tony's interest in girls.  It's a neat little peak into the world of young guys and their insecurities and worries.  There are so many books out there for girls.  It brought back memories of this book by Gary Paulsen.  I gave it a blah review back when I read it, before I was in love with Paulsen.  It was actually first Paulsen book.   I need to read it again and see what I think now that I understand him more.  Anyway, what I liked about TAMIW, Tony is a nice guy.  He wouldn't go near the 4 PTSs, that's for sure.

Underwhelming

Just Babies:  the origins of good and evil was a big disappointment. It was a particular downer because I bought the book for a friend for Christmas and also because I bought the audio version for myself.  I had heard about this 60 minutes bit but I hadn't watched it and I just heard it was neat so I thought, well, I will get the book! I've mentioned by whole Calvinist upbringing and so this is very different.
The book didn't really talk a lot about the Baby Lab.  It went off on a lot of different tangents. Seems like this might have just been a nice journal article, instead of a whole book.

Totally

A new fan of Paul Fleischman, I was excited to listen to A Fate Totally Worse Than Death.  I had no idea that it was a spoof when I first started listening to it because I hadn't read the description, I just chose it because of the author!  So it was a very shocking start for me!
This book was written when the Scream movies were popular and the Christopher Pike and Diane Hoh books were burning out.  Super funny and fantastic!  Loved it!

"Build a bridge out of her!"

Patrick Jones is one of my "heroes in the field."  He is an amazingly talented man, with a heart for teens and libraries. Bridge.  I wrote about him here, when I read The Tear Collector, which was a terrific book.  I was blown away when he posted on my blog, because well, he is Patrick Jones!  And he's brilliant and he also seems super kind!  And he is just so cool!
When I saw Bridge on netgalley, I just had to request it.  Turns out that Bridge is part of a series called The Alternative.  I can't wait to read the other.  I am going to purchase all of these for the Library!  Hooray!