FINISHED:

O'Brien, Robert C. (1971). Mrs. Frisby and the rats of Nimh. New York: Aladdin/Simon & Schuster.

[Wow, I REALLY liked this one. Widowed Mrs. Frisby the mouse has to find a way to move her family as the farm that she's living on is about to be tilled up for planting. She enlists the help of a bunch of rats who live underneath a rose bush - rats who have escaped from a laboratory, NIMH. In the lab, the rats were subjected to shots that have not only made them much smarter, but have also kept them young. Not really at all what I thought the book was going to be about - but I'm going off my memories of the animated film from the '80s which seemed to have a "mystical" element to it.]

STARTED:
Jacques, Brian. (2002). Triss. New York: Philomel/Penguin Putnam.

[From one talking animal book to another. This is the 15th "mousey-tales" book by Jacques. I've read the first 13 (believe it or not) and started the 14th when we were in Mexico. I never got to finish it and decided to move on and come back to it some other time. Luckily, these Redwall tales aren't sequentially bound.]

*

FINISHED:

Konigsburg, E.L. (1967). Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and me, Elizabeth. New York: Atheneum/Simon & Schuster.

[This woman is just great. She's got the kid voice down pat. This one's a quirky tale about an outsider girl who befriends another outsider girl whom she believes is a witch.]

STARTED:

O'Brien, Robert C. (1971). Mrs. Frisby and the rats of Nimh. New York: Aladdin/Simon & Schuster.

[An old classic that I've never read. It's also a Newbery winner, so I can check that one off the list when I'm done.]

*

Christmas Book 2007

Shulevitz, Uri. (1998). Snow. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.

[It's only fitting that the Christmas book that I got this year is one of the best books that I discovered this year, by one of the best illustrators that I discovered this year. Just so simple, poetic, and beautiful.]


STARTED & FINISHED:

Dubanevich, Arlene. (1986). Pigs at Christmas. New York: Bradbury/Macmillan.

[Done in big panels, this one is cute, but really strange.]




Briggs, Raymond. (1973). Father Christmas. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan.

[Done in comic book panel style, this seasonal tale, by the guy who did "The Snowman", teaches us that Santa does indeed use the bathroom and is a crotchety, cursing jerk who hates his job. Lovely holiday fare for the whole family!]




von Juchen, Aurel. (1968). The holy night. New York: Atheneum.

["Why is he reading a Christmas book about the nativity story??" Well, it's because the drawings were done by Celestino Piatti and I just can't get enough of the guy. Again, STUNNING illustrations that are suitable for framing. I'd give you a summary of the plot, but I'll bet that you can guess what it's about...]

*

FINISHED:

Sanchez, Alex. (2004). So hard to say. New York: Simon & Schuster.

[A quick read about Frederick - the new kid at school - and Xio, the girl that falls for him and brings him into her group of friends. Frederick is, of course, questioning his feelings for guys, and is worried that even talking to the kid at school that everyone teases as being a "fag" will bring the spotlight toward himself. Definitely stuff that I can relate to having gone through. Going through Sanchez's "gay" books makes me think about how these would've "flown" back when I was a teenager. I mean, they probably couldn't have existed back then, but I wonder how things might be different for me if they had been around when I was going through a bunch of the same emotions as the kids in these books. Would I have even had the courage to go up to the circulation desk at the library and check them out? At least kids these days can use self-checkout machines...]

STARTED:
Konigsburg, E.L. (1967). Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and me, Elizabeth. New York: Atheneum/Simon & Schuster.

[Another Konigsburg - working my way through all of her books.]

*

FINISHED:

Schmidt, Gary D. (2007). The Wednesday wars. New York: Clarion.

[This one really did turn out to be pretty darn fun. It's set during the Vietnam War and is about a 7th grade kid named Holling Hoodhood who is Presbyterian, so, while on Wednesday afternoons half of his class goes to Temple and the other half go to Catechism, he's stuck alone with his teacher, Mrs. Baker. After initially punishing Holling for being Presbyterian (if he were Catholic or Jewish she'd have the afternoon off...) by making him clean chalkboards and erasers, she decides to have him start working his way through Shakespeare's plays. It's a fun series of wacky stuff occurring over the course of a school year, with Mrs. Baker's husband being lost in the War, Holling having to deal with his father whose only goals are to be Businessman of the Year and have Holling take over his architecture firm, a sister who wants to be a flowerchild, yellow tights with feathers on the butt, and cream puffs. Best YA book of the year? Well, it's great, but holding me back is a scene where Holling is literally chased across the schoolyard by a couple of rats. Most of this book made me laugh out loud, but that scene made me go, "Oh, come on!"]

STARTED:

Sanchez, Alex. (2004). So hard to say. New York: Simon & Schuster.

[Another one for gay youngsters from the guy who did the Rainbow series of books.]

*

STARTED & FINISHED:

Emberley, Ed. (2007). Bye-bye, Big Bad Bullybug. New York: Little, Brown & Company.

[.]




Stevenson, James. (1994). Fun, no fun. New York: Greenwillow/William Morrow.

[.]




Shulevitz, Uri. (1990). Circus caps for sale. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

[.]

*

FINISHED:

Sanderson, Brandon. (2007). Alcatraz versus the evil librarians. New York: Scholastic.

[Will post my review for ACL after I write it. Here it is:

After burning down the kitchen of his umpteenth foster family’s house, Alcatraz Smedry, prone to breaking things, is whisked away by an old man who shows up at the door claiming to be his grandfather. Grandfather Leavenworth (all Smedry males are named after prisons), after explaining that librarians are in control of all information and hope to keep “Hushlanders” in the dark about certain facts, leads Alcatraz on a mission to break into the downtown library (evil librarian headquarters). They’re on a mission to retrieve a box of sand that Alcatraz received for his 13th birthday – sand, that if melted into glass lenses, may hold the key to a long forgotten secret language. The first in a series, Alcatraz is packed with wise-cracking humor, brisk action, and introduces young readers to a new world of intriguing gadgets, heroes, and villains.
Each chapter begins with editorializing from our protagonist narrator – chatter, though often quite humorous, that tends to interrupt the flow of the action and, by the end, grows a bit tiresome (especially when it suggests that novels about the Great Depression “rot the brain”). A surprising highlight, however, is a moving, introspective passage in which Alcatraz comes the realization that maybe he has pushed people away all his life – that his talent for breaking things extends to not letting anyone get to close to him. This is a light, often quite funny, book – the first in a series – which teases and tickles from the first line to the last. Fans of light fantasy and humor will find this one quite satisfying.]

STARTED:

Schmidt, Gary D. (2007). The Wednesday wars. New York: Clarion.

[Getting a lot of pre-Newbery buzz, and I'm REALLY liking it so far. It's not super often that a novel can make me laugh out loud.]

*

FINISHED:

Pullman, Philip. (1997). The golden compass. New York: Del Rey/Ballantine.

[Really liked this again the second time around. Just wanted to make sure that I remembered it all before seeing the movie - which, just looks stupendous - like it has a really unique visual style. Can't imagine that it's going to be a huge success as I'm sure word of mouth will be, "It's pretty but it didn't make a lick of sense."]

STARTED:
Sanderson, Brandon. (2007). Alcatraz versus the evil librarians. New York: Scholastic.

[Reviewing for ACL.]

*

STARTED & FINISHED:

LaReau, Kara. (2006). Ugly fish. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc.

[LOVE the illustrations by Scott Magoon - I think he's a talent to watch out for - but the message of the book gets a little lost. Ugly Fish eats each of the fish that are put in the tank with him then gets his own by being eaten by a bigger fish that is thrown in with him. The author says this is a response to bullying, but, is the message we want to send out that bully's will get their own one day?]



Coy, John. (1996). Night driving. New York: Henry Holt & Company.

[Gorgeous illustrations by Peter McCarty - quickly becoming one of my favorites - that are like softer, more ethereal Chris Van Allsburg pictures. It's an understated, sweetly nostalgic story of a boy and his dad on a nighttime drive.]

*

STARTED & FINISHED:

Heide, Florence Parry. (1971). The shrinking of Treehorn. New York: Holiday House.

[CHARMED by this black comedic tale with illustrations by Edward Gorey. A little kid starts shrinking and all that his parents can say about it are, "If you want to pretend you're shrinking, that's all right as long as you don't do it at the table", and, "I wonder if he's doing it on purpose. Just to be different." Witty, hilarious dialog that will strike a chord with any disenfranchised youth. There are two more of these that I need to pick up and read.]




Geisert, Arthur. (2002). The giant ball of string. Boston: Walter Lorraine/Houghton Mifflin.

[Mixed feelings on this one. I'm quite drawn to Geisert's illustrations, but the story rubs me the wrong way. So, there's this town of pigs that take pride in the fact that they are in possession of the largest ball of string in the world. One night, the ball of string is washed away in a rainstorm and a town downstream finds it, and, KNOWING that the ball of string belongs to another town STILL DECIDES TO KEEP IT AS THEIR OWN! What kind of message is that? Sure, the citizens of the town that really own the string ball come up with an intricate and clever plot to get it back, but...]

*