Wonder, by R. J. Palacio

Published June 3, 2013 by Dagmar

I wasn’t sure what to make of Wonder when I started it. In fact, I put it down for a while thinking it would be a cliched story of a person living with a disability, bullied by others. This book is so much richer and more thoughtful than I first thought. I was inspired to give it another try after my students talked about it at school and after my son recommended it to me after it was recommended it to him by a friend.

August is a fifth grader who has been homeschooled until fifth grade because he suffers from severe birth defects that have deformed his face. All his life, people have gawked at him, laughed at him, been scared of him or have otherwise been unkind. August’s parents think he should go to a real school and learn to build friendships. August begins fifth grade at a private school. His entry into school is rough. There are only a few kids who will take the social risk to befriend him.

The book moves along well, because each chapter is told from the point of view of another character. You hear not only from August, but also from his sister Olivia, her boyfriend Justin, her good friend Miranda and August’s best friends Summer and Jack. Each person has their own story to tell.

I was moved to tears several times in this book. It’s really well done. Highly recommended to tweens and middle school readers.

One Crazy Summer, by Rita Williams-Garcia

Published June 2, 2013 by Dagmar

One Crazy Summer is an incredible book – not only because much of the book takes place just blocks from my school library in North Oakland, CA – but because the main character, Delphine, is a strong and capable 11 year old girl who really knows how to make the best of a bad situation. I love her strength and her determination. This book ran like wildfire around my school.

Delphine, Vonetta and Fern are three girls, 11, 9 and 7, who live with their father and Big Ma, their grandmother, in Brooklyn, NY. Their mother, Cecile abandoned them when Fern was just a baby. One summer, the girl’s father says the girls need to know their mother and sends them across the country to stay with their mother in Oakland, CA. The girls, who don’t know their mother at all, are greeted by Cecile at the airport. Cecile not only doesn’t hug them, when she takes them home, she doesn’t cook for them or care for them in any way. Cecile sends them off every day to get their breakfast from the Black Panthers kitchen in the neighborhood and tells the girls to spend the day in the Black Panthers’ summer camp. The girls learn all about revolution but also that the Black Panthers feed hungry people. They also discover that their mother, a poet with a printing press, has been asked to print the Black Panther newsletter.

Delphine rises to the occasion. She rejects her mother’s call to eat Chinese food every night and goes to the store so she can cook meals for her sisters. She even plans an excursion into San Francisco so that the girls can actually see something of California, not just “poor people in Oakland”. Delphine is smart. You just can’t help routing her on and hoping that her mother can see all the good that we see in her.

This book is a window into the world of the 1960s and those who believed in the work of the Black Panthers and those in the black community who saw things differently. Delphine is forced to view both worlds, that of her father and grandma and that of her mother Cecile. What a great book. But, don’t just believe me. This book won the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, the Coretta Scott King Award and a Newbery Honor and National Book Award Honor. Don’t miss it.

I’m excited to read Rita Williams-Garcia’s new book, P.S. Be Eleven.

The Shadows: The Books of Elsewhere #1, by Jacqueline West

Published May 31, 2013 by Dagmar

The Shadows is the first book in the Books of Elsewhere series. I love a mystery, and I couldn’t put this book down. My students can’t stop reading at the first book. They go on and read the next two books in the series. Wait until I tell them book 4 is coming out soon!

Olive Dunwoody and her parents move into the McMartin house after Ms. McMartin passes away. Their new house comes with all the McMartin’s possessions. There are lots of interesting pieces of furniture and paintings on the wall. When Olive and her parents try to move a painting, they find all the paintings in the house are stuck to the walls. Olive’s parents leave Olive to her own devices, a lot. Olive is a curious girl. She uses her free time to roam around the house. Inside one drawer, Olive finds spectacles. She discovers that when she wears the spectacles, she can see people in the paintings move. Olive also learns that she can enter and leave each painting in the house. Olive meets people in the paintings. One of the people she meets is a little boy, Morton, who is desperately afraid of a man he says put him in the painting. Olive is determined to solve the mystery of people in the paintings and to discover the secrets of McMartin family and their home. But, it is said that “curiosity killed the cat.” Will Olive survive her search for the truth about the paintings?

Recommended for tween readers who love a good, exciting mystery.

Big Nate: In a Class by Himself, by Lincoln Peirce

Published May 28, 2013 by Dagmar

The first of the Big Nate series, my students recommended that I read this book. I’m glad I did! It’s perfect for fans of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Like the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, it’s funny and is a blend of graphic novel and text. This series is really popular with boys from 4th-6th grade who are always lobbying for me to get more books in the series…anything to keep them reading!

Big Nate (COMIX!) is also now a graphic novel series, so Big Nate flies off the shelves in my fiction and my graphic novel sections. Highly recommended for tween boy readers who like to laugh.

Dear Dumb Diary, by Jim Benton

Published May 23, 2013 by Dagmar

I love Dan Gutman’s My Weird School series for younger readers, because it is so irreverent. Kids say things in the books that they would actually say to each other, instead of the more “pc” things they say around their parents and teachers. I think that’s what makes the series so successful with its 2nd and 3rd grade fans.

Well, here is the series for older readers – the same snarky, irreverent humor that so appeals to kids with My Weird School, appears in Jim Benton’s Dear Dumb Diary, a real favorite with my 4th-6th graders looking for a funny book. This series tends to be read more by girls.

In her note at the beginning of her “dumb” diary, Jamie Kelly writes, “Dear Whoever is Reading My Dumb Diary, Are you sure you’re supposed to be reading somebody else’s diary? …If you are my parents, then YES, I know that I am not allowed to call people idiots and fools and goons and halfwits and pinheads and all that, but this is a diary and I didn’t actually “call” them anything. I wrote it. And if you punish me for it, then I will know that you read my diary, which I amnot giving you permission to do.” So begins Jamie’s diary and her hatred of “perfect” Angeline, a kid named Mike Pinsetti who has the power to create embarrassing nicknames, and her search to help her good friend Isabelle pick a new “signature” lip gloss.

Ok, the series is NOT deep; but, it is really funny. This series flies off my shelves with its fans reading every book in the series.

Shooting Kabul, by N.H. Senzai

Published May 1, 2013 by Dagmar

Middle schoolers barely remember a time when the United States didn’t have troops in Afghanistan. Shooting Kabul takes place in Kabul and in Fremont, CA. The book starts as 12 year old Fadi and his family, afraid of the way Kabul has changed under the rule of the Taliban, make a dangerous nighttime escape from Afghanistan. Fadi loses hold of his six year old sister’s hand in the escape. Broken-hearted, the family is forced to save themselves and leave little Mariam behind in Afghanistan.

Shooting Kabul is the incredible story of an immigrant family adjusting to life in Fremont in a large Afghani community. The family moves in with relatives and has to live in cramped quarters and the hospitality of their relatives until Fadi’s father can find work. Fadi has to transition to an American middle school and his father finds work as a taxi driver. It is difficult to support the family as a taxi driver and particularly difficult, because his father was a university professor in Kabul. Fadi cannot forget his little sister, alone in Afghanistan, or maybe even Pakistan. He is determined to find her and bring her to America. He enters a photo competition with his new friend, a girl named Anh. First prize is a photographic journey to anywhere in the world. Fadi thinks this is his way to get back to Pakistan, where he thinks his sister might be.

Then, 9/11 happens, and it’s hard being at school where kids only see you as Afghani and someone who might be responsible for the attacks. Fadi concentrates harder on winning the photo competition and finding Mariam.

This book kept me and my students in suspense. I had to keep turning the pages to see if Fadi could find his little sister. A great read.

Mike Lupica’s Sports books

Published April 27, 2013 by Dagmar

My male students who are into sports are very particular about their sports, it’s either football, basketball or baseball. It is not a blend. So, what do I give students who want to read nothing but sports books and Sports Illustrated? I had a suspicion that I could pull them in with Mike Lupica’s books, and am happy to tell you that I have kids, many of them reluctant readers, grabbing his books off the shelves.

Mike Lupica is a syndicated sports writer for the New York Daily News. Most importantly, he writes realistic fiction about football, basketball and baseball. This is realistic fiction that has my tween and middle school boys excited about reading. I think these books could easily reach high school age students too.

Here’s a link to his web-site: http://www.mikelupicabooks.com/

Take a look. You can also check out my review of Heat, Mike Lupica’s book about a 12 year old boy trying to get to the Little League world series.

Malice, by Christopher Wooding

Published April 27, 2013 by Dagmar

Is your tween or middle schooler looking for an edgy, sinister book? I’m asked every day for “scary” books and usually lead my students to my ghost story collections. But, for those kids who don’t mind dark books, read A Series of Unfortunate Events, tore through the Cirque du Freak series and are looking for more, Malice could be the answer. It is sinister, so I’d suggest middle school for this book.

I read Malice in one sitting. It was that good. This smart, but scary book is part novel, part graphic novel, part fantasy. Malice is about high school kids caught up in the mystique surrounding a comic book called Malice. It is said that kids who perform a ritual to call the main character, “Tall Jake” disappear, sometimes for months and sometimes forever. The pages of Malice, if you can get your hands on a copy, show the kids who have disappeared fighting for their lives in a strange fantasy world. Little do the kids who do the ritual know that Tall Jake is real, the world of Malice is real and as terrifying and deadly as the comic book makes out. Those that come back from having disappeared don’t remember a thing about the time they were away. Because no one remembers Malice after they return, no one can warn the other kids about Malice and the dangers of calling Tall Jake. Seth and his friends, once in Malice, fight for their lives and swear that they will find a way to stop Tall Jake.

This book has a sequel called Havoc which continues the story of Seth’s fight against Tall Jake.

Olympians, by George O’Connor

Published March 12, 2013 by Dagmar

Another great graphic novel series. This series focuses on the greek gods. The pages are full cover and the author, George O’Connor pulls from historical texts as he retells the myths of each of the gods he writes about. The illustrations are full-color and dramatic and are a real draw for students. The series includes books on Zeus, Athena, Hades, Hera and Poseiden to be published this month. Highly recommended for tweens and middle school readers.

Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales, by Nathan Hale

Published March 12, 2013 by Dagmar

I’m so happy to see that graphic novels are expanding to include history, mythology, and adaptations of classics. I have a few readers who will not read anything unless it’s in graphic novel format. They’re big readers and are in the library always looking for new books. They are really excited about this series. I’m excited, because they’re reading American History!

This new series, Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales is a funny recounting of the story of Nathan Hale, the Revolutionary War spy who famously said, “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” In this version, Nathan Hale and the hangman are discussing “last words” and the fact that Nathan Hale should say something memorable before he is hanged. Nathan Hale not only thinks of his last words, but then delays his hanging by recounting the story of the seige of Boston, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and General Howe’s invasion of New York.

This is real American history but presented in a funny and engaging way. I laughed out loud several times at the cleverness of the book. There are two books in the series so far, One Dead Spy and Big Bad Ironclad and more to come. (Thank goodness!) My only regret… is that the pages are not full-color. I think it would add a lot to the book if the illustrations were more attractive. That said, it’s a great series and kids love it.

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