Classy Hamster

I have complained about books in which authors seem to kiss up to libraries and other authors.  I don't know why it bothers me, it just does.  When it doesn't seem to "fit" in with the rest of the story, it just seems like product placement.  Is it weird that a book about a talking hamster can get library-love right when so many "big time" authors get it so wrong?  There is a lot of library-love in Einstein the Class Hamster Saves the Library, I mean, it is even in the title!  But this book is not a kissy-uppy deal, it seems to me.  It is "ripped from the headlines" as we hear about more and more schools choosing to close their libraries or downsize them in the district, but this is just done so well.  And it just seems like something that Einstein, whom we have come to know and love from his previous books, would do.  It's no secret that I love all things Tashijan, but I really feel that my love for this book is not biased!

I said it many times before and I will say it again.

My Life as a...is NOT a Diary of a Wimpy Kid retread.  I don't know if anyone but me has ever thought that, but when I first saw one of the books for the first time I thought it was just going to be one. But from the very first one, which was actually the second one, I was hooked.  My Life as a Joke is just as good as that one and Derek Fallon is just as awesome.  And I can't wait for the next one.
The thing about My Life as...as I have said before, is that they have a serious side and take on real-life issues.
Great, great books from a very talented mother and son.

The Third One!

My Life as a Cartoonist is the latest in the My Life as a...series by Janet Tashjian and her son Jake.  Again I can't say enough that this series isn't a cheap rip-off of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books.  In this one Derek and Matt meet Umberto, a transfer student who starts right in bullying Derek.  It's funny and real and Derek and his friends are totally likable and lovable!  Great series.

Music is His Life!

For What It's Worth is a really good book.  I enjoyed it a ton and read it quickly, but I don't know a lot of teens I would recommend it too, because, well I don't know.  There are a ton of references to albums and bands in it, and they are actual albums and bands, not like in the bizarre Why We Broke Up, which references a million movies and movie stars that have never existed.  I knew most of the music that Tashjian mentions, but I don't know if teens do.  Maybe they do?  Maybe they don't, but just like I didn't know much about Rimbaud (okay ANYTHING) I was compelled to find out more after reading Radiant Days.  So yeah, I will recommend the book for sure to teens.  And I know I will recommend it to adults.  The book is set in 1971-1972, when Quinn heads back to school after the summer that Jim Morrison has died.
Judy, Jim and Tupac.  The three most important people in music, ever.
Anyway.
Quinn is fourteen and he is a music fanatic!  He has a sweet record collection, a mom and dad, a sister who is a freshman at Brandeis, and he lives is Laurel Canyon.  His mom is friends with Mama Cass, he actually would see people like Janis and Jim hanging out.   He gets a job helping Frank Zappa.  It's just his neighborhood, you know?  In the right place at the right time.  This year he gets his first girlfriend, so there is the young love part.  He also starts to realize more about the world around him.  Remember this is Vietnam time.  The protests, the draft, Watergate is in here.  This is would be a great book to recommend to a teen having to do historical fiction, actually.  I mean, they would enjoy it and it is also historical!
Anyway, great book!

More than a cartoon

My Life as a Book left we with the same feeling that My Life as a Stuntboy did.    It is Diary of a Wimpy Kid...but it's more than that.  It's just so good and serious in parts and really, really awesome.  A large part of this book deals with the accidental drowning of a teenager.  I know...it seems weird.  How can that be in a cartoon book?  Well, it is and it is really well done.  Great book.  Can't wait for another.  This was the first and Stuntboy is the second.  Bring on the third! This book also introduced me to parkour, which I had never heard of before!

The Book I Almost Never Got to Finish

I started reading My Life as a Stuntboy last week and I took it into work with me when I was about 3/4 finished.  A patron saw the book and said it looked like something his son would love to read.  How can you say no to a patron who is dying to read a good book to his son?  So I just said, "Here!  Take this copy!" and inside I was SAD!  I was almost to the end!  I wanted to find out what happened to twelve-year-old Derek who, while doing stunts on UCLA's campus with his buddy Matt, is discovered by a stuntman.  The stuntman, Tony, believes that Derek will be a perfect stuntboy for a film he is working on.  At first I thought this is weird, no way Derek's parents will let him be in a movie because some random dude met him on a college campus and offers him a job, but the book explains that.  Living in LA, everybody knows people who work in the movie industry and Derek's dad works in it, too.  So I guess it was too weird.  The book is written in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid way, cartoons (Derek draws cartoons of his vocabulary words so that he can remember them with greater ease).  If you like Wimpy Kid, you will definitely like Stuntboy, but this is a worthy book all on its on, not just a cheeseball rip-off.  I loved it!  I'm glad I got my hands on another copy and I hope father and son enjoyed it as well!