FINISHED:

Stewart, Trent Lee. (2007). The mysterious Benedict Society. New York: Little Brown.

[.]

STARTED:
MacLeod, Doug. (2006/2007). I'm being stalked by a moonshadow. Honesdale, PA: Front Street/Boyds Mills.

[Reading for ACL review.]

*

FINISHED:

Wild, Kate. (2007). Fight game. New York: Chicken House.

[Will post my ACL review once I have it written. Click on the link above to see a "trailer" for the book. The cheesy "trailer" kind of says it all, though...

And, here's my review:

Freedom, a gypsy with a “Hercules gene” that makes him a web-footed super-fighter, is reluctantly enlisted by Phoenix organization (an undercover government agency that investigates the paranormal) to infiltrate an underground fighting operation. While debating what he should do, the sister of a missing teen who has likely been taken in as a fighter in the club attempts to get Freedom to assist her in her search. Freedom is your typical “rebel without a cause” – conflicted and torn between wanting to do what’s right for his gypsy family and what’s right for himself – never really being drawn as a complex character with any depth that might make us sympathetic to his “struggle”. Somewhat laughably, the novel ends with a fight between Freedom and a malformed creature that turns out to be “related” to Freedom, having been created as a super-fighter using some of Freedom’s DNA. Moreover, an inconsistency involving the walls of the underground fighting chambers is a further example of the lack of care and thought put into this tome: Freedom finds out from young orphans that the walls emit mind-control signals, yet, only two pages later, Freedom stealthly presses himself against the walls to avoid being seen – with no reference at all this time to the walls’ mind control properties. Careless. This is a slow-paced yawner with, despite the title, VERY little actual fighting that might have actually been a way to entice reluctant male readers to pick it up. A concluding sequel is in the works for release in Summer 2008, but the ending is such a non-cliffhanger (Oh! The fight club leader is actually a woman… and she’s getting away!) that this reviewer ponders if there really was even a need for another episode in this dim tale.]




STARTED & FINISHED:

Reinhardt, Dana. (2007). Harmless. New York: Wendy Lamb/Random House.

[Read this for ACL - it was on the Distinguished list and I read it so that I can write an annotation. Three high school girls make up a lie about where they were one night so that their parents don't find out that they were actually making out with some older boys. Their lie, that they were attacked by a stranger down by the river, takes on a life of its own and tears them apart. Good character building and interesting home life situations make this a compelling read.]

STARTED:
Stewart, Trent Lee. (2007). The mysterious Benedict Society. New York: Little Brown.

[Another one that's been on my radar for a while because I've heard so many good things about it. I'm still only on the first chapter and already it's made me laugh out loud a couple of times. Promising, indeed.]

*

FINISHED:

Konigsburg, E.L. (1970). (George). New York: Atheneum.

[.]

STARTED:
Wild, Kate. (2007). Fight game. New York: Chicken House.

[Reading for ACL review.]

*

FINISHED:

Doder, Joshua. (2007). Grk and the Pelotti gang. New York: Delacorte Press.

[Here's my ACL review:

Three notorious sibling criminals have robbed all of the biggest banks in Rio and three young people in England decide that it is up to them to catch the thieves. Tim, Max and Natascha (the last two of whom are orphans that have recently come to live with Tim and his parents) and their dog, Grk, steal Tim’s parents’ credit card and buy tickets to Brazil. There they are treated as royalty (it was Max and Natascha’s father who initially captured the Pelotti gang and put them in prison) and Tim sets off with Grk by his side to catch the robbers himself – aided by a couple of young street urchins that have attempted to hold him for ransom. Plot hole after plot hole opens up, the point of view shifts awkwardly, and characters that we are led to believe are important are left by the wayside. The Pelotti brothers themselves open the book, but then aren’t heard from again until the middle, Max and Natascha seem to just be along for the ride, never getting the justice that it seems like they are craving – in fact, once the kids get to Rio the book becomes a travelogue of Brazil with Max and Natascha jumping into a limousine to explore the sights and even play soccer in a World Cup stadium (!) – and, Tim’s parents show up in Brazil just so that they can sit by the pool at the hotel and fall asleep letting Tim get away from them again. Even Grk himself oftentimes feels like an afterthought, never being the central character as the book title would suggest, but as something that is along for the ride and occasionally mentioned when it is required of him to bite a bad guy in the leg, hand, etc. A sequel to A Dog Called Grk (Delacorte, 2007), which should probably be read first in order to get a handle on the relationships between the 3 young people (which isn’t really explained here), this one’s just a dog.]

STARTED:
Konigsburg, E.L. (1970). (George). New York: Atheneum.

[Continuing my quest to read the complete works of Konigsburg. She's amazing, and this one is quite odd... to say the least...]

*

FINISHED:

Prevost, Guillaume. (2006, 2007). The book of time. New York: Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic.

[SO nothing to write home about, but not as bad as I initially thought. Will post my official review once it is done. Here it is:

After his father goes missing, Sam finds a mysterious stone pedestal in the basement of his dad’s bookshop. By fitting a coin into a slot on the pedestal Sam is transported through time to a World War I battlefield, a village of monks about to be pillaged by Vikings in Nova Scotia, and a tomb in ancient Egypt. Sam eventually figures out that his father is likely being held captive in Dracula’s castle but is unsure how to find his way through time to get there as the pedestals appear to be governed partly by thought. The adventures that Sam has at various places in time, in addition to being overly convenient (Hey, there’s a coin right over there that will help me leap through time again!), seem to be completely random and unrelated, not serving a central plotline but rather only providing interesting places and times for Sam to leap. Originally published in France, this is, however, the first tome in a trilogy, so the possibility still exists that these events may all come together in the forthcoming installments. The most interesting development doesn’t come until the very last page as Sam finds a desperate message from his father in a photograph from a library book, but the rest is pretty typical and lacking in any real excitement. Young fans of time travel fiction may find something worthy of their attention here, but all others will likely find themselves waiting for things to get interesting.]

STARTED:
Doder, Joshua. (2007). Grk and the Pelotti gang. New York: Delacorte Press.

[Reviewing for ACL - so far, it's a ROTTEN EGG.]

*

FINISHED:

Curtis, Christopher Paul. (2007). Elijah of Buxton. New York: Scholastic.

[WOW. Why THIS didn't win the Newbery this year... I'm not quite sure. Although I have yet to read this year's winner (I've got it on order from Amazon), I doubt that it is half as enjoyable and moving as this one. It starts out very quirky, funny, episodic and Mark Twain-y and then gets kind of heavy halfway through. Elijah is the first born into freedom at a small town of ex-slaves which have escaped to Canada. Eventually, he has to go into the US to see what happened to a "preacher" who took money that was to be spent on buying another town resident's family out of slavery. The kid grows up, while still remaining a hint of his "fragile"-ness, and ends up in a situation which will just break your heart wide open. I would have no qualms handing this one to EVERY child that walked through the library doors. What a brilliant way to introduce kids to an unbelievable time in US history. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.]

STARTED (again):
Prevost, Guillaume. (2006, 2007). The book of time. New York: Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic.

[Got so caught up in reading stuff that I want to read that I forgot that the next ACL meeting is next Friday. I've got to get on the ball and read and review this one and 3 others...]

*