Turtle in Paradise

Set in Key West in 1935, Turtle in Paradise is an interesting look at life during the Depression. Turtle, the main character in the story, lives in New Jersey with her single mother, and is sent to live with relatives in Key West when her mother finds work as a housekeeper for a woman that "can't abide by children." Filled with colorful characters and interesting adventures, I highly recommend this book for those interested in historical fiction. Even Earnest Hemingway makes a short appearance in the story!

From Booklist:

Eleven-year-old Turtle is not one to suffer fools gladly. And she runs into a lot of fools, especially the no-goods her starry-eyed mother meets. So it's a tough little Turtle who arrives in Key West in June of 1935. She's been sent to Florida to stay with relatives because her mother's latest housekeeping job doesn't allow children. Unfortunately, Mama has neglected to tell Aunt Minnie she's coming, and Turtle gets the stink eye from cousins with monikers like Buddy and Beans. As Turtle soon learns, everything is different in Key West, from the fruit hanging on trees to the scorpions in nightgowns to the ways kids earn money. She can't be part of her cousins' Diaper Gang (no girls allowed), which takes care of fussy babies, but when she finds a treasure map, she hopes she'll be on Easy Street like Little Orphan Annie. Holm uses family stories as the basis for this tale, part romp, part steely-eyed look at the Depression era.

And the winner is...

It has been such a long time since my last entry, and I apologize for the delay! The American Library Association just announced this year's list of award winning books. Most of you are familiar with the Caldecott and Newbery Medals, but they also give out the Printz Award for great young adult fiction, Coretta Scott King Award to excellent African American authors. Here are my suggestions of great books that have received awards this year:

Moon Over Manifest
Winner of the Newbery Medal
After a life of riding the rails with her father, 12-year-old Abilene can’t understand why he has sent her away to stay with Pastor Shady Howard in Manifest, Missouri, a town he left years earlier; but over the summer she pieces together his story. In 1936, Manifest is a town worn down by sadness, drought, and the Depression, but it is more welcoming to newcomers than it was in 1918, when it was a conglomeration of coal-mining immigrants who were kept apart by habit, company practice, and prejudice. Abilene quickly finds friends and uncovers a local mystery. Their summerlong “spy hunt” reveals deep-seated secrets and helps restore residents’ faith in the bright future once promised on the town’s sign. Abilene’s first-person narrative is intertwined with newspaper columns from 1917 to 1918 and stories told by a diviner, Miss Sadie, while letters home from a soldier fighting in WWI add yet another narrative layer. Vanderpool weaves humor and sorrow into a complex tale involving murders, orphans, bootlegging, and a mother in hiding. With believable dialogue, vocabulary and imagery appropriate to time and place, and well-developed characters, this rich and rewarding first novel is “like sucking on a butterscotch. Smooth and sweet.” --From Booklist

Ship Breaker
Winner of the Printz Award
A fast-paced postapocalyptic adventure set on the American Gulf Coast. Nailer works light crew; his dirty, dangerous job is to crawl deep into the wrecks of the ancient oil tankers that line the beach, scavenging copper wire and turning it over to his crew boss. After a brutal hurricane passes over, Nailer and his friend Pima stumble upon the wreck of a luxurious clipper ship. It's filled with valuable goods-a "Lucky Strike" that could make them rich, if only they can find a safe way to cash it in. Amid the wreckage, a girl barely clings to life. If they help her, she tells them, she can show them a world of privilege that they have never known. But can they trust her? --From School Library Journal

One Crazy Summer
Winner of the Coretta Scott King Book Award
It is 1968, and three black sisters from Brooklyn have been put on a California-bound plane by their father to spend a month with their mother, a poet who ran off years before and is living in Oakland. It's the summer after Black Panther founder Huey Newton was jailed and member Bobby Hutton was gunned down trying to surrender to the Oakland police, and there are men in berets shouting "Black Power" on the news. Delphine, 11, remembers her mother, but after years of separation she's more apt to believe what her grandmother has said about her, that Cecile is a selfish, crazy woman who sleeps on the street. At least Cecile lives in a real house, but she reacts to her daughters' arrival without warmth or even curiosity. Instead, she sends the girls to eat breakfast at a center run by the Black Panther Party and tells them to stay out as long as they can so that she can work on her poetry. Over the course of the next four weeks, Delphine and her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, spend a lot of time learning about revolution and staying out of their mother's way. --From School Library Journal

Forge

This book was a total surprise for me. I didn't even know there was going to be a sequel to Laurie Halse Anderson's Chains, so when I saw this in a book store over the Thanksgiving holiday, I bought it right away. Some of you read Chains after reading my blog entry about it in May. Forge doesn't disappoint. You can read this book as a stand alone, but I would recommend reading Chains first. Isabel, our heroine is one of the most memorable book characters of all time, and Forge continues her story. I would highly recommend this book for all those who love historical fiction, and early American history.

From School Library Journal
Gr 6-10–This sequel to Chains (S & S, 2008) opens with Curzon, an enslaved teen who was freed from prison by Isabel, recalling his escape and anticipating the future. After an argument with Isabel about where they should go next, the 15-year-old battles the British at Saratoga and winters in Valley Forge with the Patriots. He reveals many details of the conditions endured by the soldiers during the winter of 1777-1778, including the limited food supply, lack of adequate shelter, and tattered clothing. When Curzon and Isabel meet again, they have both been captured and must devise a plan of escape once again. While the Patriots are fighting for the freedom of a country, these young people must fight for their personal freedom. This sequel can be read alone but readers will benefit from reading the first book, which develops the characters and reveals events leading up to the winter at Valley Forge.

Harry Potter Mania

Unless you have been living under a rock, it has been impossible to miss the hype surrounding the premier of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 in theaters this weekend. I will confess, I am HUGE Harry Potter fan. I love the books, I love the movies, and I am super excited about the new movie. Rather then do a "traditional" book review this week, I thought I would do something a little different. After completing the book series, I felt a little let down...what am I going to read now? Now that the movies are coming to an end, I am starting to feel that same let down. So I have been on a quest to find more book series to love. Here is my list of books for "If you love Harry Potter then you must read...."

His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass) by Philip Pullman


The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien

Artemis Fowl Series by Eoin Colfer

Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket

Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader will soon be released as a movie)

Charlie Bone Series by Jenny Nemmo

The Mysterious Benedict Society Series by Trenton Lee Stewart

Theodosia Series by R.L. LaFevers

Redwall Series by Brian Jacques

Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series by Rick Riordan

39 Clues Series by multiple authors

Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer (see my earlier posts on this one...sorry, still don't like it, but I know many of you do)

Song of the Lioness Series by Tamora Pierce

If you have other book series to add to this list please click on "Comment" below and send me your thoughts. Also, enter your vote on the "Harry Potter" poll on the right hand sidebar on the blog. Happy reading, and I will see you at the movies this weekend!

The Black Book of Secrets

Everyone has a secret, and some are darker than others. I had the great pleasure this weekend of reading The Black Book of Secrets by F.E Higgins. Ludlow Fitch, a pickpocket from the City, is running from a terrible past. He arrives in the small mountain village, and is taken on as an assistant to a pawnbroker who trades people's darkest secrets for money. For a full summary of the plot, see below. The tone of this book is appropriately dark, and its amazing the variety of dark secrets carried around by people in this small town. All along the book is building to a climatic confrontation between the secret pawnbroker, and the man who owns most everything in the town. You know that things are going to end badly for one of these men, and it isn't clear who that is going to be until the very end. It was suspenseful enough to keep me turning pages late into the night. Come check it out!

From Booklist (starred review)
Forced into being a pickpocket by his parents, Ludlow Fitch rebels, fleeing the city after they attempt to pluck out his teeth to sell for gin money. In the mountain village of Pagus Parvus, he finds work with another newcomer to town, Joe Zabbidou, a “secret pawnbroker” whose business is to relieve people of their most troublesome secrets—which Ludlow records for Zabbidou in a mysterious black tome. The story’s vaguely Dickensian atmosphere is exquisite, and Higgins populates her dark, imaginary landscape with gnarled gravediggers, brutish butchers, impish ragamuffins, and a dastardly landlord bent on squeezing every last shilling from the destitute town. The story never lags as Zabbidou stockpiles the town’s litany of woes, leaving his own secret intentions a mystery even to his young acolyte. At the same time, Zabbidou’s developing role as a father figure for Ludlow transforms the boy into something he never dreamed he could become: worthwhile.

TumTum & Nutmeg

After my last entry and review of a book full of demons and the Devil it was time for a change. Those of you seeking a creepy book for Halloween see my review of The Boneshaker below. This week I needed relief from the scary, and read TumTum and Nutmeg: Adventures Beyond Nutmouse Hall. This British import is wonderfully written. If you read The Borrowers Series or The Little's and enjoyed them, then this is the book for you. I found myself charmed by TumTum and Nutmeg themselves, and General Marchmouse's childlike antics are hysterical. I particularly enjoyed the scene where the General mounts a full blown attack on a doll house with G.I. Joe action figures. See a summary below, and come and check the book out of the library.

From School Library Journal:
Rose Cottage is a modest abode "rife with clutter and chaos." But behind a broom-closet door, hidden by a heavy chest of drawers, lies a 36-room mansion, home to Tumtum and Nutmeg Nutmouse. The retiring animal couple takes great pleasure in helping absentminded Mr. Mildew and his motherless children, who live in the cottage, in small ways—darning socks, rewiring heaters, and patching shoes. But a visit by the Mildews' odious Aunt Ivy turns the quiet couple's life upside down after the woman spots them on the upstairs landing. A full-blown mouse attack ensues, requiring the assistance of neighboring General Marchmouse and his mouse battalion. Adventure upon adventure follows, including trouble at the local school and an encounter with pirate rats (who are hindered by liqueur-filled chocolates).

The Boneshaker

"Strange things can happen at a crossroads." This is a lesson that Natalie Minks comes to learn about her town. This is a wonderful historical fantasy with a dramatic "good vs. evil" theme. Natalie must save her town from demons and even the Devil himself, with the help of her friends and a few strange characters in her town of Arcane, Missouri. It has been a long time since I found a book that kept me up reading late at night. It was so suspenseful that I couldn't sleep until I had found out what happened next. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves the horror/fantasy genre. Be prepared to lose some sleep!


From School Library Journal:
Natalie Minks, 13, likes machines-the way they make sense, the way all the gears and cogs fit together to make something happen. When Dr. Jake Limberleg's Nostrum Fair and Technological Medicine Show stops in at her father's bicycle repair shop because a wagon wheel has fallen off and disappeared, Natalie knows that the man is not meant to fit into the machinery of her life. Her ailing mother has told her stories of bargains made with the Devil, and of besting wickedness by looking it right in the face. Limberleg has a collection of clockwork figures that work without being wound up and never seem to run down. When Natalie begins to have inexplicable visions of the malevolent forces facing Arcane, MO, she isn't convinced that she is equipped to fight the evil at hand. Soon almost everyone is taken in by Limberleg's promises of miraculous healing and snake-oil cures, and it becomes clear to Natalie that she is their only hope of survival. Enhanced by full-page drawings, this intricate story, set in the early 20th century, unfolds with the almost audible click of puzzle pieces coming together. In the gothic tradition of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes (S & S, 1962), The Boneshaker will earn itself a place in the annals of stories about children and the struggle between good and evil.-Heather M. Campbell, formerly at Philip S. Miller Library, Castle Rock, CO Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.