The Graveyard Book

Hello,

Welcome back to the world of books. Ah... there are so many to choose from. That is why this blog exists... To help you decide which book to choose...

Today, my recommendation is on The Graveyard Book, a wonderful thriller written by Neil Gaiman, and the winner of this year's Newbery Award. If any of you don't know, (you should be ashamed of calling yourself a book lover if you have never heard of it) the Newbery (one R) Award is a prestigious award that is given yearly by the ALA to a children's book.

The novel was quite good - a bit slow at the beginning - but a good choice overall. In it, Gaiman describes an orphaned boy (his parents were murdered) and how he grows up in a graveyard. Bod (short for Nobody) Owens is a giving boy, working hard to rid his school of bullies, yet he is lonely. In a graveyard, there are only dead people, so Bod gets bored... The novel illustrated his excursions and explorations - speaking if illustrations, Dave McKean did a great job on them...

4.5/5

Better that most

Ages 6 and up... A great book, to read or to be read to - does contain mild violence

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw

Ha Ha Ha...

I finished reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw, by Jeff Kinney, and it gave me the usual Diary of a Wimpy Kid laugh. In this book, Greg is set by his dad to do some "manly" endeavors, and to reduce his wimpyness. Greg, of course, sidesteps every one of his dad's needs, from continuing to wear his mother's bathrobe, to volunteering for substitute goalie in order to sidestep soccer time.

Kinney weaves a thriller again with Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw.

4.9/5
"Worth Every Cent"

Ages 7 and up

Savvy

I just finished reading Savvy, a novel by Ingrid Law! Oh, let me slow down - I even forgot my greeting! Still, it was a very good book, and if I was deciding the Newbery, I would have voted this over The Graveyard Book. Oops! I wasn't supposed to tell you about that review that is coming up soon.

Anyway, Savvy was about a family that has special powers. The family calls their powers their "savvy." In the book, Mibs, the main character, chances stowing away on a rickety bus to try to save her father, who had been in an accident.

That day, she was going to find out what her savvy was, and she convinced herself that it would save here father.

She finds love, sadness, and almost every other emotion after the bus ends up going in the wrong direction.

Law wrote a wonderful tale of happiness and sadness, love and affection, cruelty and loneliness.

4.8/5
Very Good

Ages 8 and up

The Big Game of Everything

Hello!

I just finished reading The Big Game of Everything, a fantastic novel by Chris Lynch. It is about a boy named Union Jack, pronounced "Onion Jock," and his family. Over summer vacation, he takes a journey through the truth of the following rule: You have to love your family. It is a rule, and the main character claims that if you don't follow the rule, you must be some kind of animal. Of course, he goes on to say that his brother is that kind of animal, but still, he seems to snincerely believe it.

That thought gets him through the summer, when he goes to help out his grandfather at his golf course. He lives with bankruptcy, family craziness, and more. And he gets though it, loving his family affectionately the whole time.

A wonderful read, especially for young readers - it is classified as YOUNG ADULT, but I thinnk that a 6 year old would get a bigger kick out of it.

4.2/5
Very good read...

Ages 5 and up - that is maintaining that the 5 year old will understand the vocab - a parent might want to read it to a young child

Life As We Knew It

Hello,

I just finished reading Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer.
Miranda is the protagonist in this wonderful book that is made to look like a diary.
The book describes what it would theoretically be like if the moon was thrown off orbit. This story told about tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes and more.
Pfeffer did a great job involving the reader in this story. On Valentine's Day, I was asked to bake a cake, and I almost said "Miranda told us that we need to ration our food and fuel, and making cake is a waste of both"
Of course, I didn't, and in the end, the cake was delicious, but still, it goes to show you how immersed in the book I was.

4.8/5
Amazing

Ages 8 and up, although there are some semi-scary parts

Little Brother

Book Critic 101 calling bibliophiles, (if you don't know what this means, LOOK IT UP)

I just finished reading Little Brother, a fantastic novel by Cory Doctorow.

In this thrilling, yet potentially politically accurate novel, the protagonist, Marcus, is sent to jail by the US Department of Homeland Security. Tortured using waterboarding, spied on by the DHS who are using the alibi of the PATRIOT Act, and with his favorite teacher being fired because she disagreed with the government, Marcus wants to get back at the government somehow.

His inspiration comes in the form of Xnet, a network of people that want to fight the government.
Marcus, the founder, under the disguise of M1K3Y, pronounced Mikey, uses this site to create a multi-player game site, complete with facebook like profiles, and public blogs.

Doctorov clearly did his research as preperation for this bone-chilling book.

4.8/5
EXCELLENT

Ages 11 and up
Language and events may not be suitable for younger children, and some words will be difficult to understand.

Jellicoe Road

G'day mate!

I just got back from a trip to Australia - figuratively.
In my "trip" to the land down under, I learned about a girl named Taylor and her problems.
Well, to tell you the truth, I've been sitting and reading Jellicoe Road, a book by Maria Marchetta. This excellently written book, also the winner of the Printz Award for Teen Literature, was a gripping story about Taylor, the protagonist, and her past.
Taylor is in charge of her house at the boarding school that she goes to. After being elected leader, she goes on to become the leader of the school, and is forced to take charge of the territory wars, a game that their school plays against some other schools. But when people start to go missing, her caretaker disappears, the territory wars become more hostile than ever, and life keeps on getting in her way, can Taylor succeed. This is the question answered in Marchetta's new novel.

3.5/5
Very well written

Ages 14 and up for colorful language and other elements

Check out Stephanie Ford's review here!

Nightjohn

I have recently been studying Nightjohn, by Gary Paulson. While looking around at the book, and some critiques, I found this wonderful essay. After reading it, I immediately asked for permission to use it on this blog, which I got instantly. I enjoyed it very much, and I hope that you do too:

In the case that I could bring a character back from Nightjohn, by Gary Paulson, I would bring back Nightjohn. I would think that if he came to the present day and age, he would be impressed with the relatively high literacy rate that African Americans have today. Obviously, the importance that he gave to teaching literacy among his priorities would make it possible to infer that this was probably one of his dreams come true.

Another striking difference would be the absence of slavery. The fact that everyone is free and equal would probably be a big deal for someone like him, especially since he was once a slave, and under today's laws, it would be illegal for anyone to own him in any way. I would hope that he would be pleased about the drastic change from slavery to one of his own race being the president of this country. I think that he, more than most people, would appreciate this difference.

On the other hand, I would think that he might miss teaching the English language. Of course, he could probably apply for an ELA teacher job, but with all of the restrictions and license related issues, he would probably have a tough time making it into a school system. However, I am pretty sure that he would enjoy present day life more that being a slave, or being on the run. In conclusion, I think that Nightjohn would be happy about how his life's goal has been accomplished.

-R. R.

ALA Book Awards!

Bonjour!

Today, the ALA Book awards were released.

As is usually true, the American Library Association's Youth Media Awards committees had more than a few surprises for readers eagerly awaiting the winners of the 2009 awards.


Receiving the 2009 Newberry Award is Neal Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, a dark story of a boy named Nobody, who is safe from a mysterious assassin only within the confines of a graveyard. I don't wan't to give away any more, as this is an excellent book that has a few fun surprises.

Newbery Honor Awards go to Kathi Appelt for The Underneath, Ingrid Law for Savvy, Jacqueline Woodson's After Tupac and D Foster, and Margarita Engle's The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom.

The 2009 Caldecott Award winner, Susan Marie Swanson, illustrated her book, The House in the Night, extremely well.




Receiving Caldecott Honor Awards were Marla Frazee for A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever, Uri Shulevitz for How I Learned Geography, and illustrator Melissa Sweet for A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams.

The Carnegie Award has been presented to Weston Woods' film based on Christine King Farris' book March On!: The Day My Brother Martin Changed The World, as a little surprise.

Mo Willems has again took the Theodore Seuss Geisel Award for easy reader books with his latest installment in his popular series, Are You Ready to Play Outside? (An Elephant and Piggie Book).

Cool Tidbits...

Kadir Nelson has won the Coretta Scott King Author Award for We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball. The King Illustrator Award goes to Floyd Cooper for his work in The Blacker the Berry.

The Printz Award for Young Adult Literature has been given to Melina Marchetta's Jellicoe Road.

The Pura Belpre Award for Hispanic literature goes to author Margarita Engle for The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom and illustrator Yuyi Morales for Just In Case: A Trickster Tale and Spanish Alphabet Book.

Once again, to many children's delight, the ALA book awards are out. Happy reading!

Hitler Youth : Growing up in Hitler's Shadow

Guten Morgan, (good morning in german)
After giving out the "book of the month" award, it is time to start anew. Next month's award most likely will be given on Monday, February 23.
Anyway. After reading The Boy In The Striped Pajamas, I couldn't help but want to know more about the holocaust, and to know how historically accurate the book was. In order to find out, I went to the young adults non-fiction book (as I usually read mostly children's books) Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hitler's Shadow, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti. In this absolutely horrifying book, Bartoletti describes some of the brainwashing that Hitler used on many teenagers of Germany, in order to gain their support and self sacrifice. To think that teenagers died happily for Germany, thinking that what Hitler was doing is right, and that Germans are the best people, and all others are inferior is quite scary.

I do not rate non-fiction due to the fact thet there is no storyline to rate.
Ages 13 and up
I just wanted to mention that I usually do not recommend that children undar a certain age SHOULD NOT read something, as I believe that if people do not know what mistakes were made in the past may make them again (this is why I am such an anti-censorship advocate), I don't think that this book is approriate for kids younger than at least 11, due to the horrors within.