Giveaway Reminder!

Scholastic is sponsoring a huge holiday gift giveaway for one lucky winner.

Here's their required text:

Give the gift of reading to your child this holiday season! Scholastic books make the perfect stocking stuffer for any child on your list.

We have a HUGE prize pack filled with the most popular children’s books in the marketplace to offer one lucky reader! Titles include CAPTAIN SKY BLUE, IT’S CHRISTMAS DAVID, OOK and GLUK as well as TONY BALONEY, ODIOUS OGRE and I SPY CHRISTMAS A CHRISTMAS TREE!

Click here to enter.

It ends on December 6th, so enter now!

Nonfiction Monday: Hunt! Can You Survive the Stone Age?

Hunt!: Can You Survive the Stone Age? Julia Bruce illus. Peter Dennis

For today's Nonfiction Monday, I thought I'd tie it in with this morning's review of The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future.

This book offers a good, basic introduction to the Stone Age and was a Cybil's nominee last year.(Yes! I know how far behind I am in sharing my reviews!)

Page spreads concentrate on things such as cave painting, mammoth hunting, cooking, or tool making. After a general introduction to the topic, there are several illustration of various sizes with other small bits of information in the captions and side paragraphs.

Overall, it's a quick and interesting look at daily life during various seasons of the stone age. Something the book doesn't get into is where this clan of people live (besides "the tundra") and any cultural differences between various stone age peoples and if clans had interaction with each other. While this was a good introduction, I could have used a little... more.

There's a very good time line in the back and the further reading list includes books and websites that are also geared for kids.


Today's nonfiction roundup is over at Playing By the Book  be sure to check it out!

Book Provided by... the publisher, for Cybils 2009 consideration

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Giveaway Update!

Just in case you already read it and won't see that I updated the post, I just wanted to let you know that my BIG GIVEAWAY, sponsored by the good people at Scholastic, ends next Monday, December 6th, so be sure to enter now!

BIG GIVEAWAY!

Did you all have a lovely holiday?

Mine was great and now I'm back from my blogging vacation with a BIG FANTASTIC GIVEAWAY! (as promised)

But first, a review...

The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future Dav Pilkey

So, the conceit here is that, like The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby, this is another comic book written by George and Harold, the stars of Captain Underpants.

Ook and Gluk are two cave kids in 500,001 BC who like to annoy their evil chief. After defeating the chief, the big trouble begins because the chief finds that one of his descendants has built a time portal from 2222 AD and is using it to steal the prehistoric world of all the natural resources that no longer exist in the future.

Ook and Gluk and their baby dinosaur, Lily, go to the future to defeat them and end up learning the ways of kung-fu.

Lots of great lessons from martial arts here--

The mind is stronger than the flesh. It can defeat any opponent, no matter how strong.

The best fighters do not show their anger. The wisest warrior wins without a battle.

AND! Lots of flip-o-rama action-- 9 different flip-o-ramas.

Now, as this was "written" by George and Harold the spelling and grammar are awful (not helped by the fact that half the characters speak caveman). I don't mind this in concept. If we fight for realism in our books, I think we need to fight for it at all ages-- younger kids don't spell perfectly and don't speak perfectly. I have no problem with books aimed at younger kids mirroring this reality. Especially because I think most kids get it-- the know it's wrong, but at the same time it's reassuring that not everyone is a perfect speller.

But, as an adult reader, the spelling is a little annoying and sometimes I had to think about a word before realizing what it was supposed to be (reading out loud helps with this.)

You can see an inside peek here!

More than anything though, as fun as this book was, and as much as the kids I know like it, the kids have only one question, and it's a question I share-- WHEN DO WE GET NEW CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS?!

NOW THE BIG GIVEAWAY!

Scholastic is sponsoring a huge holiday gift giveaway for one lucky winner.

Here's their required text:

Give the gift of reading to your child this holiday season! Scholastic books make the perfect stocking stuffer for any child on your list.

We have a HUGE prize pack filled with the most popular children’s books in the marketplace to offer one lucky reader! Titles include CAPTAIN SKY BLUE, IT’S CHRISTMAS DAVID, OOK and GLUK as well as TONY BALONEY, ODIOUS OGRE and I SPY CHRISTMAS A CHRISTMAS TREE!

Fill out the form below for your chance to win!

ETA: I forgot to say in my initial post that entries must be received by December 6th. That's a week from today!



Book Provided by... the publicist, for review consideration. The giveaway is organized by the publicist and sponsored by the publisher.

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Blog Break

Hi All!

This is just a quick post to say that I am horribly behind on my reading and reviewing, and have people coming into town, then I'm going out of town, then Thanksgiving...

So in order to make my life a little more sane, I'm going to be taking a short blog break until after Thanksgiving. I hope all my US-based friends have a good holiday and stuff themselves silly.

For all my non-US based friends... find some other excuse to have a good time and stuff yourself silly, ok?

And when I come back, I'm going to have a HUGE giveaway to start the holiday season off right!

See you then!

Alice in Charge

Alice in Charge Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

It's Alice's senior year and she seems to think that now she's almost an adult, and off to college next year, she can no longer ask for help with anything, because "doing it yourself" is part of being grownup. So, there were a lot fewer conversations where her dad and Lester only talk as a way to impart VALUABLE INFORMATION ABOUT LIFE STUFF to the reader. So that was nice, but Alice's attitude bothered me and just led to a lot of "I'm so stressed out and can't handle this" self-invented drama.

Along with this, Alice befriends a Sudanese refugee and teaches him our American ways, battles a hate group at school, battles a sketchy teacher, and is (rather condescendingly/patronizingly) nice to a student who seems to be on the autism spectrum, but it isn't specified.

The ending, as usual is a little pat, and Naylor's explanation as to why people join hate groups is over-simple to the point of being insipid* but Alice is so gosh-darn EARNEST and reminds me a lot of me at that age that I really like her, even though Naylor has no eye for little details.

For instance:

Pam wants to go to school in New York, it has to be New York, the implication being New York CITY. She lists all these schools she's thinking about, and they're all in the city, except then she mentions Cornell. Which is in New York STATE, not City. (And according to Google maps, is the same distance, time-wise, from the city as Silver Spring is.)

It seems really, really weird that Kay's parents would have had an arranged marriage. Arranged marriages aren't that common in modern China and are most likely to take place in rural areas among classes that would be unable or very unlikely to have the money and skills necessary to immigrate to the US. So, unless Kay's parents are 100 years old, this is just... no.

Molly has a boyfriend who's "Indian. Pakistani, anyway." Because they're TOTALLY THE SAME THING. And I bet he's totally ok with his girlfriend thinking they are.

Why are 2,714 people graduating with Les? And why are they all WALKING? Speaking as someone who has gotten a Master's degree from Maryland in the past few years, grad students are invited to the big ceremony, but no one walks and most don't go. Each school has its own graduation ceremony where they walk. And I highly doubt that 2,714 people are earning a Masters in Philosophy at a December graduation. Naylor does get points for pointing out the totally true ridiculousness that graduation is 2 days before Christmas. (I walked on the 22nd. FOR REALZ.)

What is with Alice enjoying cheesy school presentations by outside groups on various dangers facing teens? Does Naylor really think most kids think these are actually funny and cool?

So, yeah, I've often blogged about my love/hate relationship with this series. Why can I love a character, but hate the books so much? Alice deserves better than poorly-researched after-school specials she gets thrown into.


*SPOILER ALERT! It's because his father is emotionally abusive! And says he's too wussy to be a Marine. So that's why he's a Neo Nazi.

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Mammoth Academy

The Mammoth Academy Neal Layton

In this rather delightfully silly book Oscar (the woolly mammoth) and his friend Fox (a fox) are off to school. School has new friends and important lessons (and an unfortunate flu epidemic) but, more mysteriously-- missing oranges and MYSTERIOUS TRACKS.

Oscar and Fox are on the case, because oranges are necessary for helping their friends get better from the flu.

But, could these mysterious tracks belong to the elusive and extremely dangerous human?

A great book for readers who have graduated from Early Readers. It's full of pictures and silly fun and prehistoric creatures and stinky feet-- it's sure to be a big hit.

Book Provided by...

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Clementine Friend of the Week

Clementine, Friend of the Week Sarah Pennypacker

It's Clementine's turn to be Friend of the Week. Not only is she in charge of the milk money, being line leader, and feeding the fish, but at the end of the week, all of her classmates will write a booklet about her.

Clementine wants to make sure that her classmates have good things to say about her in her booklet, so tries to find nice things she can do for them-- free tattoos at lunch, promising they can use all of her dad's crazy holiday decorations for their bikes at the big bike rally...

But then she and Margaret get into a HUGE FIGHT.

And, even worse, Moisturizer goes missing. Clementine completely forgets about Friend of the Week as she tries to find her kitten, only to remember after she thinks she let everyone down.

Clementine's voice and way of looking at the world continue to positively delight me. And her illustration work in this series continues to be my favorite Marla Frazee work. (I like her best in black and white.)

Clementine always makes me smile and even though she cried a lot in this book (as would you, if youre kitten went misisng!)  she still made me laugh.

Another great addition to a super-strong, super-awesome series.

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

My Life as a Book

My Life as a Book Janet Tashjian

Derek is looking forward to this summer, even though he knows he's not going to have some huge adventure like they do in book and movies. But his summer takes a turn for the worse when his parents make him go to learning camp to help him with his reading. But, when he's not dodging his summer reading assignments, Derek likes exploring and playing with the animals at his mom's vet project. While in the attic, he finds an old newspaper that his mother doesn't want to talk about, which might just give him his grand adventure after all.

One thing Derek does to help with his reading is to draw cartoons of the words he doesn't recognize, and this margins of this book are filled with cartoons of some of the harder words, all drawn by Tashjian's 15-year-old son, Jake who regularly draws cartoons of his vocabulary words.

Overall, this is a fun story (I mean, there's a MONKEY. How can you not love a summer story that involves a MONKEY) but I could have done without the dead-babysitter-newspaper-article subplot. It quickly eclipses the rest of the plot and turns the book into a "I had a grand adventure that nicely wrapped up just in time for school" summer story, which Derek was very explicit in the beginning his summer wouldn't be. And yeah, cool, he got what he want. But most kids feel that way at the beginning of the summer and most of them don't get a grand adventure and there was enough going on in an otherwise funny book that this rather tragic storyline didn't necessarily gel in that well.

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Body of Christopher Creed staying in schools!

I haven't read The Body of Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci so I can't really comment on content and how good it is. (But it is a Printz Honor, so that counts for something.)

It's being used in the Appleton (Wisconsin) Public School District as required reading in 9th grade. After reading it, the students talk about gossip and bullying and the consequences.

It's been challenged.

The reconsideration committee (which is always convened, but hasn't had to meet since 1984!) says to keep it. The superintendent has the final say and we'll see what he says, but I'm hoping he keeps it.

And not just because censorship is bad and un-American.

But because I used to be a 9th grader in Appleton public schools. I was in honors English and the way my hazy memory works, we read several short stories and poems, and we had to read a novel of our choice every quarter and write a really long book report on it. We spent a lot of time on grammar and the subtleties of language, connotation and denotation, and word choice. It drove me batty at the time but is actually one of the more useful things I learned in school.

We only read 1 novel-length book as a class the entire year. We only read this book because all 9th graders were required to read it, followed by a mandatory unit on suicide and why we shouldn't do it.

The book was the super-relevant and relate-able Romeo and Juliet. Now I'm a nerd and was in honors English so I didn't mind. (I had also already read it a few times.) It's a good classic that's easy to introduce at that age and if you're college-prep honors track, I think a grounding the classics is good. Many of the girls found it one of the more enjoyable "school books" we had to read. I was just happy because we were reading something and not deconstructing the differences between glitter, flash, and sparkle. Or having pop quizzes where we had to write down ALL the prepositions in 3 minutes. Even then, we spent most of the unit analyzing meter. What I remember most is realizing that Romeo and Juliet are both really, really annoying characters who make horrible life decisions.

BUT. It wasn't really relevant. None of us connected to it on a personal level. We all saw it as an easy way to work in a mandatory unit on suicide with a book that we should all read. We saw it as a nice-try-but-kinda-stupid gimmick.

And I bet today's 9th graders feel that The Body of Christopher Creed being tied to units on bullying is also gimmicky. But I also bet it's a book they connect to much more deeply and because of that, no matter how gimmicky, the tie-in lesson will have more impact and stay with them much longer.

And, with current issues we have with bullying and suicide and the current "It Gets Better" campaign* those are lessons we need to be keeping in schools in every form that we can.


*And to all my younger readers-- IT DOES GET BETTER. Mama always said that maybe if we stopped telling students that high school would be the best years of their lives, we'd cut the teen suicide rate drastically. I agree. My high school experience was pretty good, actually, all things considering, and those years are still some of the worst in my life.


Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Hex Hall

Hex Hall Rachel Hawkins

First off, shout-out to Green Bean Teen Queen for writing the review that made me finally pick up this book. I had read several reviews and where it seemed nice, nothing made me think "I must pick this up now!" until I read

If Harry Potter married Samantha from Bewitched and had a chick lit baby, with a smidge of A Great and Terrible Beauty, and a dash of Nancy Drew’smystery solving, you would get Hex Hall.

I mean, how could I not pick it up after that (totally accurate by the way) description?

Sophie Mercer is a witch that's been raised by her mortal mother. When a love spell goes wrong, she's sent to Hecate Hall-- aka reform school for witches, fairies, and shapeshifters. Sophie quickly realizes she's out of her depth because she doesn't know anything about the Prodigium and their ways.

Or the fact that the father she's never met is the Head of the Council, aka the guy who sentenced them all to Hex Hall.

But when the Mean Girls are also the only dark witches on campus (besides Sophie) and Sophie's only real friend is an outcast vampire with an unnatural like for hot pink, and her main crush is head Mean Girl's boyfriend? Oiy.

Things go from bad to worse when dark witches start turning up dead with all of their blood drained and all the suspicion is on Jenna (the vampire). Sophie knows Jenna didn't do it, but can't figure out how to prove it...

Overall, it's a fun mystery with a few really cool twists. I love how Sophie covers her fear and vulnerability with sarcasm. I also like how she deals with the situation she finds herself thrown into-- she doesn't totally fall apart, but she also doesn't slide right into it. She strikes the right balance to make her believable without being weak.

I had a very hard time putting this one down and am rather impatiently counting down the days until March, when Demonglass comes out!

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Nonfiction Monday: Project Seahorse

Project Seahorse Pamela S. Turner, photographs by Scott Tuascon

Once again, the Scientists in the Field series hits it out of the park.

Project Seahorse is a program that helps set up Marine Protected Areas off the coast of the Philippines. Seahorses are in trouble because there is a great demand for them-- dried seahorses are an important ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine and are also used for curios and knick-knacks. Live seahorses are very popular to use in aquariums, even though they are extremely hard to keep alive in captivity.

In addition to learning a lot about seahorses and coral reefs, Turner also shows why Project Seahorse is so successful as an organization.

The reason Project Seahorse works is because they work very closely with the communities who depend on the reefs for their livelihoods. By working closely with all of the players, they create very important buy-in, so everyone's on board with the project. One thing Project Seahorse works for isn't a complete ban on the seahorse trade, but a more sustainable one. Not only do they work with the fisherman, but also aquariums and Chinese medicine practitioners.

They also take a very interdisciplinary approach their conservation efforts. In addition to observing reef recovery by diving and counting and observing, the scientists also interview the fisherman to see if/how their catches are improving and work closely with them, not just for data, but so that they continue to support the project.

They hope that not only with the reef recover (and it's very much starting to) in the protected areas, but as it recovers, it spills out of the protected boundaries, bringing recovery to the unprotected areas as well (and the fisherman hope so, too.)

Also, the pictures are just FANTASTIC. Seahorses are weird little creatures and there are lots of cool pictures of them, but also of the other fish and life along the reef. Stunning. (My favorite was in the very back, of the weedy seadragon.)

As always, there is also a list for further reading, watching, and researching, as well as tips kids can do right now to help.

Another great book to show why this series is so awesome.

Round up is over at Write About Now. Be sure to check it out!

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Poetry Friday: All the Broken Pieces

All The Broken Pieces Ann E. Burg

My fingers stumble
through the scales
and through
"The Gypsy Camp."

They crowd the keys,
landing in two spots
at the same time.
They slip, clank, and clash
into sounds
that aren't music.

Watch, Jeff says calmly
when my fingers freeze
in frustration.

Jeff's fingers are
bigger than mine,
but they know how
to touch each key,
one at a time.
They unlock each sound
separately.

Jeff doesn't make mistakes.

His fingers brush
across the piano keys
like branches
of the tamarind
swaying in the wind.
How can such big hands
make such quiet music?

Matt is the son of a Vietnamese mother and the American soldier who left and didn't come back. He was airlifted out of Saigon without his mother or brother and adopted by an American family.

In his experiences on his baseball team, where a teammate blames Matt for a brother's death, and in working with a Veterans group, Matt comes to face the life he lived before and now only lives in his nightmares.

I've often talked about how I feel many verse novels could be written in short paragraphs and that's true here, but the sparsity of the text because of the verse format helps show Matt's isolation and confusion.

Round up is over at A Wrung Sponge!

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Booking Through Thursday

Today's Booking Through Thursday question asks:

Name a book (or books) from a country other than your own that you love. Or aren’t there any?

There are a million! Off the top of my head, here are a few favorites:

Harry Potter bu JK Rowling (from England)

Feeling Sorry for Celia: A Novel by Jaclyn Moriarty (from Australia-- I love all of her books)

The Garlic Ballads: A Novel by Mo Yan (from China-- Mo Yan is one of my favorite authors)

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto (from Japan-- I like her other books, too)

Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow by Faiza Guene (from France)

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Year of the Historical: The Body at the Tower

The Agency 2: The Body at the Tower YS Lee

YAY! Mary Quinn is back! And James is too! AND IT IS AWESOME. And if that's not enough to excite you, what is wrong with you?

Ok, I should say more. Mary has disguised herself as a boy, Mark, to investigate a murder and some other irregularities at the building site of St. Stephen's Tower (which houses Big Ben). James is back from India, greatly weakened by malarial fever, and investigating the same thing, but officially. The tabloids are poking around and brickies aren't men that like to be messed with. There are tangled webs of beer, love, stolen goods, blackmail and more to be worked out. Not to mention the issues between Mary and James.

A gripping mystery with an even grippy-er romantic subplot (I have such a crush on James. SUCH A CRUSH!) I also love how much detail Lee works in about Victorian London without ever overwhelming the story. I mean, she even manages to work in the stench, the way the streets teemed with life, what it was like after dark in less savory neighborhoods. She really makes London come alive in a remarkable way.

This series is AWESOME and I can't wait for book 3! CANNOT WAIT!

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Cum Laude

Cum Laude Cecily von Ziegesar

5 students meet at Freshman orientation and muddle their way through their first semester at a small liberal arts college in Maine.

This isn't nearly as juicy and scandal ridden as von Ziegesar's Gossip Girl series. There are fewer characters. While there's still a lot of sex, booze, and drugs, it's more in line with regular college partying. There are overprivileged characters to be sure, but middle class ones as well. I love how well she captured life at a small college in a small town. The little details are done really well and it will ring true for anyone who went to a small college. This takes place during the Bush/Clinton/Perot election. My college election was Bush/Gore/Nader but everything still felt right and rang really true.

I especially liked the storyline with Shipley and her brother and I want to see what happens with that. I like that Shipley and Tom had talents that you wouldn't expect of them. Eliza and Tragedy made me laugh.

This is a slower, less trashy but still juicy, and still just as literary (but not as overtly so) story than Gossip Girl. I can't tell if it's going to be a series or not. I kinda want it to be, because I really want to know what happens next, but I also get the sense that if it is, it will be 8-10 books and jump the shark around book 4. We'll see what happens.

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Thirteenth Princess

The Thirteenth Princess Diane Zahler

This is a slightly different take on the fairy tale "The Twelve Dancing Princesses." There were twelve princesses, when the king wanted a boy. When the queen died giving birth to the thirteenth princess, the king demanded that she be removed from his sight and sent to live with the servants. When Zita was 7, she first learned the truth of her parents. After that, she gets to know her sisters, the princesses know Zita is one of them, but must hide their interactions in fear of the king. Shortly after Zita turns twelve, the princesses start falling mysteriously ill, and that's when we enter the familiar realm of the fairy tale. Zita works with her friend the stable boy, his older soldier brother, and a hidden witch to rescue the princesses from dark magic that makes them dance every night.

I did really enjoy this book. I'm a big fan of Twelve Dancing Princesses stories. That said, there was so much else going on to flesh out the book--Zita's friendship with Breckin, her relationship with her sisters and how Zita's relationship with the king is different than that of her sisters, the persistence of magic despite it's banishment... there's so much there, I think it would have been a lovely story with a slightly different, completely original plot.

Zahler's has another fairy tale coming out in February, A True Princess, which is a version of "The Princess and the Pea" that I'm looking forward to!

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Princess For Hire

Princess for Hire Lindsey Leavitt

Desi knows she's destined for greatness-- something much better than spending the summer in a groundhog costume handing out coupons in front of the Pets Charming pet store. When she sees an ad to be a princess, she can't resist.

It turns out that she has Magic Potential and sometimes even princesses need a break. When royals need to get away from their lives for awhile, they call Facade. A bit of magic rouge will transform the sub to a physical match with the princess and the sub will step in for a few days so the real princess can escape.

Desi wants to make an impact, so she tries to help the princesses solve their problems when she's pretending to be them--sadly this is very against the rules. And while Desi can try to solve the princesses' problems, who will help her solve her own?

Very fun with awesome comebacks, ultimate humiliations, and some cool magic technology. It's a fun, light read that shows some of the darker sides of princessdom (Facade runs out of subs when no one wants to go to horrible Lady Carol's wedding). I also liked the internal politics of Facade. I think this will be a series*-- there's definitely room for more continuing adventures but they aren't necessary. However, if they come, I will probably read them.

*Charlotte reviewed this last week and she says there are two more coming.

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

The Illustrated Mum

The Illustrated Mum Jacqueline Wilson

Have you ever read anything by Wilson? She's huge in her native England and has a steady following here. I've listened to a few of her books on audio and this is the first I've actually read. But, with everything by her I'm familiar with, I'm always stunned by her ability to really get at dark, hard topics but in stories that are appropriate for kids and not totally depressing.

Dolphin thinks her mum, Marigold, is the best. She has witchy green eyes and tattoos all over her body. Dolphin's sister, Star, used to like Marigold, too. But lately Star's been growing up and thinking that Marigold needs to grow up too. She needs to get a job, stop drinking, and just be normal. When Star's father shows up, she takes the chance to move in with him, leaving Dolphin with Marigold.

Star's always taken care of Dolphin and Marigold and when Marigold's behavior gets really bad, Dolphin quickly realizes she's in over her head.

As an adult, my heart broke for Dolphin. Marigold is very unstable and can't provide for her children-- Star takes her to get the welfare check because Marigold would just go out and spend all the money, while Star uses it to buy food. But all the other adults in Dolphin's life have failed her. They look down at her because she's from a bad family and wears weird clothes and needs a bath. They never reach out and try to help, they just judge her and make everything worse.

At the same time, this is a hopeful story, with great friendships and learning to accept change and loving someone no matter how they fail you.

My only complaint was that the end was a bit abrupt-- not that it suddenly got super tidy (it's deliciously ambiguous for adults, probably not for younger readers.) But rather it ended and my first thought was "is this copy missing pages?"

Still, it won a ton of awards in England (including the Children's Book of the Year Award and the Guardian Award for Children's Fiction) and overall it was really excellent.

I will be seeking out much more of Wilson's work.

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Year of the Historical: This Means War!

This Means War!> Ellen Wittlinger

Juliet's best friend Lowell isn't talking to her anymore-- it's not ok for boys to be friends with girls anymore. Her parents are always fighting-- their small grocery store is suffering with the new supermarket that just went in on the outside of town. Then Juliet meets Patsy, one of the many new kids who have moved to town with the build up at Lathrop Airfore Base. Lowell and Juliet's fractured friendship quickly escalates into a girls vs boys war with a series of escalating tests to see who's better. The war between the kids and the tension of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which happens in the middle of it, is a parallel that works well, but gets rather heavy-handed as the book goes on.

It was really hard not to compare it to Countdown, which came out at the same time and also deals with a damaged friendship and the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I think Countdown does it much better. This Means War really didn't do much to me--there was something about the writing that I can't put my finger on that kept me from really getting into the story.

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.