The Book Review Club - Planet Jupiter

Planet Jupiter
Jane Kurtz
middle grade

I have the unexpected, great pleasure to participate in the Planet Jupiter blog tour. I've been a fan of Jane's writing for years (since she lived Kansas, a lot closer to my home in Oklahoma, and we presented together). So, while I know the author, I asked for an ARC and to participate in the tour--like a crazed reader fan. Fortunately, "crazed" doesn't put Jane off, and here I am.

Basic plot: Jupiter, a child busker whose nomadic family moves up and down the Pacific coast earning a living, is thrown out of orbit when her father leaves, her brother takes on a stationary job at a cafe to earn money to help Jupiter, her mom, and her adopted-cousin from Ethiopia, Edom, move into a house in Portland, while Edom's mom (Jupiter's aunt) undergoes treatment for cancer. Jupiter is thrust into the role of big sister, one she feels none too comfortable with, and wants to run away to the only life she knows and loves--busking. Edom wants to run away to find her mother. The two devise a plan to reach their goals.

Jupiter faces very relatable problems--welcoming a "new sibling", moving, the new and unexpected--that will awaken instant kinship in readers young and old. The novelty of her setting and family lifestyle/occupation, keep the reader engaged. This is a new take on moving house by actually moving into one. And while Jupiter doesn't have much trouble making friends thanks to her nomadic/performance drive life, Edom does. The disparity in their personalities and experiences speaks to more than one type of reader.

One aspect of the story that was harder for me to relate to was that Jupiter so readily forgave her father his many shortcomings, not least of which--leaving her. She displaces her anger on her mom's new love interest, which feels very true to life, but I would have expected more anger, more lashing out, more frustration at being abandoned. Jupiter does plan to run away, but back to the life she knows, and she never completely comes off the rails. She is fairly steady. Edom isn't. She is younger, and has already lost one parent. Maybe that is truer to life, and maybe that's why the emotional arc feels softer to me. Fictional plot trajectories have a tendency to cut years off what might happen in real life and/or combine a lot more subplots into one, or spike the climax more than what would happen in an actual setting. Still, dividing the climax across two characters, and having the supporting character feel the abject hopelessness of her situation more poignantly did soften the resolution for me.

Nevertheless, there is a lot to love in this story. From a craft perspective, Kurtz makes use of the busking profession in a creative way. She starts each chapter with verse from a folk song that resonates throughout the chapter, subtly prepping the reader for the events about to unfold, and highlighting the emotional trajectory via song.

The subplot about urban foraging for food has me wracking my brains as to whether my city is as edible as Portland, Oregon, which would be a fantastic jumping off point for classroom exploration of the world immediately surrounding any school.  Or go out and see what part of your city you can eat. And somebody warn the crickets and ants. They are some of the tastiest delights in any neighborhood.

For more great reads, whistle on over to Barrie Summy's site. She's belting them out, and in verse!

The Book Review Club - The Greenglass House

The Greenglass House
Kate Milford
middle grade

Looking for a story to drive away the long hours that pile together in huge drifts winter break? This is just the tale.

Milo Pine is settling in for the long winter break at his family's hotel, The Greenglass House, when not just one but six unexpected visitors arrive. Milo, who feels most comfortable when things are exactly as they are supposed to be, is thrown off-balance, especially when Meddy arrives. About his age, Meddy is all about adventure, and finding out why the visitors have all descended on the hotel at the same time. A mystery is afoot. As it turns out, the house--which mostly serves the area's smugglers--was the home of the greatest smuggler in Nagspeake, Doc Holystone, who died under mysterious circumstances. Cue--ghost and increased tension. Then things begin to disappear, or are they stolen? Meddy and Milo play Odd Trails, a role-playing game to discover the truth, and it's more than either bargains for.

Yep, this book version of Clue is sure to keep readers on the edge of their seats and far away from winter boredom as they track down thieves, smugglers, cat burglars, hidden trains, ghosts, lost smugglers, last cargoes, hidden treasures, famous stained glass artists, and the like. Throw in a snow storm and hot chocolate, and winter break is over before anyone realizes it's begun, both in the book and in real life.

Admittedly, there are a host of characters to keep track of, and it took some getting used to when both Meddy and Milo took on different names for their role-playing characters, and switch back and forth depending on whether their playing or not.  And then there are the multiple stories within the story itself. It's a lot, but it works. I suppose some might say such complexity could challenge, even confuse, a young reader. Young readers are often grossly underestimated. They are far better at keeping track of characters and details with their spry little minds than almost any adult, and this one gives them so much to chew on.

So pull up a chair, get a cup of hot chocolate, and dive in. Just remember to get up and grab a cheese sandwich now and again.

For more great reads, stomp on over to Barrie Summy's website. She's pouring them hot and tasty!

The Book Review Club - The Adventurer's Guide to Successful Escapes

The Adventurer's Guide 
to Successful Escapes

Wade Albert White

Of late, I have been deep in middle grade. What a wonderful place to be. If Adult is all about "letting go" and YA is all about "getting a grip", then I'd say MG is all about unbridled exploration. Gene Rodenberry was a middle grade writer at heart.

The Adventurer's Guide to Successful Escapes (AGSE for short) doesn't disappoint. There are some significant archetypes in this story: orphan, arch villain, a quest. Yet, Wade embraces them as archetypes and then delves below in novel and unexpected ways. Imagination abounds.

Basic premise: Anne escapes St. Lupin's orphanage with her friend Penelope via a gauntlet and unexpected quest she is now bound to complete or die trying (or get thrown in jail for life if she fails). Hiro, a magician whose spells have some dire kinks, joins them as they race to solve the Quest Riddle and find Anne's true home in a world akin to our own, but filled with magic, divided into tiers, and based on a computer system with an error, and the clock is ticking. Oh, and don't forget the registered villain, St. Lupin's Matron, who has sworn to stop Anne or die trying. 

It's a fast-paced, fun adventure. What got me thinking is the use of omniscient third. The older I get, the more ambivalent I become about POV. Is there really only one voice that could fit a story? That seems like saying there is only one true soulmate for me in the whole world, which means if anything happens to him, I'm doomed to a life of lonely solitude (brightened only by middle grade reads). Given how we women tend to live A LOT longer than our male soulmates, I kind of hope that's not the case (no offense to the middle grade books out there). Or to POV. But come on, even Monet did his waterlilies from multiple angles.

So what does POV do for a story? In this case, omniscient third allows White to take both a bird's eye view and a soulful look into his characters, although that really only occurs for Anne, so this may be more of a case of close third. Nevertheless, I find that getting outside the character's skin makes a story feel more "told" ... in a good way. There is distance between the reader and what's happening, one that for young readers, creates a safety barrier. Coupled with simple past, they are in the story, but it's a story that already happened, that already had a resolution. Things are gonna be okay. Probably. It's truly ancient storytelling at it's best. "Sit back," the writer says, "And listen. I'm going to scare your socks off, but you'll get them back at the end. Probably."

Omniscient third also creates a bigger picture. We get to see more of the angles to the story. It gives it a more epic quality, perfect for a quest.

And finally, omniscient third allows us to take a break and look elsewhere, thus keeping the storytelling fresh as we move from one fast-paced turn to the next.

Or that's my take on it. For others, click on over to Barrie Summy's website. She's got a stackful.

The Book Review Club - The Girl Who Drank the Moon

The Girl Who Drank the Moon
Kelly Barnkhill
Middle grade

You know those books that make you feel like a kid again and full to bursting with all that could be? That's The Girl Who Drank the Moon. Luck seems to be smiling on me because the last couple of months I've stumbled across some incredibly delicious middle grade novels, and this is yet another one.

Basic premise: Oh gees, where to start...there are a number of intertwined storylines in this book. One focuses on Luna, who is abandoned in the woods, found by a witch, and instead of being taken to a family, raised by said witch. Don't worry, she's a Glinda, not a Wicked, although Xan is over five hundred years old. She accidentally turns Luna into a new witch by letting the baby drink moonlight. And that's when the magic starts.

Luna's mother is locked up for defying the Elders, who would sacrifice her child. Antain, nephew of one of the Elders who started the child sacrifice tradition to keep the people of the Protectorate in line, breaks with the Elders and becomes a carpenter instead, then later a father, whose child is to be sacrificed. All the while, Xan, together with a friendly Swamp Monster, Glerk, and dragon, Fyrian, work to raise Luna, who leaks magic onto everything and changes it. All of the story lines wind tighter and tighter around each other until they knot and then literally explode with the volcano underneath the woods. Did I mention there are paper birds that are enmagicked?

It's so much imagination to keep a reader riveted, and yet, I drank this book slowly, to savor all there is to discover. The one part I found slightly confusing is that many chapters begin with an unknown narrator telling a child a part of a story. I never could quite figure out who the narrator was. At one point, I thought it was Luna, looking back, but it wasn't entirely clear to me. I'm not sure if it was meant to remain uncertain and a little confusing, but that was the lasting effect for me.

Otherwise, I found this to be a nearly flawless weave of imagination into story. While there may be other flaws that other reviewers would find, the end effect was deep satisfaction, as if I'd finally found the kind of chocolate cake that actually leaves you feeling pleasantly full.

For other great reads this pumpkin season, roll on over to Barrie Summy's website. She's harvesting a bumper crop!

The Book Review Club - Husky

Husky
Justin Sayre
Middle grade/YA?

I had trouble with this book, and every time I have trouble with a book I know it's one I need to think about more, which usually ends up turning into a book I have to review. This month's trouble maker: Husky by Justin Sayre. This is listed as YA by the publisher, but the main character is 12, so it sort of feels more like that, dare I say it, uncategorizable book.

Pause for gasping.

And kudos to Sayre.

Basic plot line: Davis, twelve years old, lives with his mother and grandmother in a brownstone in Brooklyn. He loves opera and is incredibly sensitive, with serious self-esteem issues. He doesn't like his body. It's the summer before 8th grade, the last weeks before the start of a whole new school year, and we spend them in his life. Nothing earth-shattering happens. Rather, it's a compilation of small occurrences that nevertheless cause a major change in the main character. Davis's friends change, evolving as adolescents do, finding themselves, his mom starts dating someone new after a very very long time of not dating anyone at all, Davis isn't invited to his best girl friend's sort of birthday party (which is just for girls), and Davis, too, is, without really knowing it, trying to figure out who he is while also searching for the strength to voice his own hurts and feelings. 

According to the author, the main character is gay but Sayre said he wasn't himself if Davis knew. This isn't a coming out book, not in the sense of sexuality. It's more about finding one's self, a much larger concept of which sexual orientation is but one part.

The story flows seamlessly. The events that happen, their very triviality, is exceptionally well-written. And the characters are all extremely well drawn.  In some ways, I think that's where I began to get hung up on the storytelling. Davis would spiral down so deeply into self-doubt or loathing that I began to be turned off as a reader. That probably says more about me than about the writing. I strive as a writer to walk that the line between believability and writing that's too well done, too realistic, too hard to relate to.

Reading those words, I think, again, it's me. It's not the story. But I didn't feel that way about Wonder, which is also a story about tough issues, finding one's way. However, Auggie didn't go so far down the rabbit hole that I couldn't or wouldn't follow him. Perhaps that is the difference between YA and middle grade? I'm positing. I'm not sure. And I'll probably spend another month chewing on the idea, trying to figure out what my personal takeaway is. Which is exactly why I had to review this book. One that makes me think, argue with myself aloud, while walking my dogs, and even puts me in a bad mood, that's a book that's causing me to grow.

Kudos to Justin Sayre again.

For more great December reads, visit Barrie Summy's website. It's brimming with delectable December delights!

The Book Review Club - Always October

Always October
Bruce Coville
Middle Grade

In breaking with my world tour of literature from Down Under to Italy, I decided on a good, ole-fashioned monster book that doesn't even take place in this world...much, Always October by Bruce Coville.

Admittedly, it would seem this has a Fall slant to it, but no!, Always October is another world, a world inhabited solely by monsters who arise from human nightmares. Ghoulish, right?

But no! not ghoulish, not entirely. The monsters are actually nice, some of them anyway.

Basic Plot: A baby is abandoned on Jacob's doorstep with a note asking that someone take care of it. Jacob and his mom take said baby in. He's sweet and adorable so they name him Little Dumpling. But alas, when the moon is full, Dumpling turns into a full-fledged monster.

Methinks Coville has spent many an hour with small children.

As it turns out, Little Dumpling isn't just your run of the mill abandoned on the doorstep monster-baby. He is actually the savior of the world of monsters and humans, and there are monsters out to get him. Jacob and his friend, Lily, must travel (are first chased, actually) to Always October, world of monsters, in an attempt to save Dumpling from the bad guys, only to discover they have to cross back into the world of humans and hide Dumpling to keep Always October and the human world from total annihilation. The journey there and back again is a monster-style Candy Land with a River of Doom and Bridge of Doom and Veil of Tears and Queen of Sorrow and CliffHouse.

The action and fast-moving plot aren't what made me choose this book for my review, though (or the need for a good horror read during the doldrums of summer!). It is Coville's use of alternating first person POV between Lily and Jacob. I was excited to find a middle grade with alternating POV. I'd tried the trick before myself, and I was eager to see what someone with Coville's writing chops had done comparatively.

To keep the characters and POV separate, each chapter is labeled (Jacob), (Lily), (Jacob), etc underneath the chapter title. Coville gives Lily a quirky metaphoric vocabulary with a decidedly B-horror movie bent, while Jacob has physical quirks, e.g. he has to tap the wall three times when going upstairs, or he taps his fingers against his thumb to calm down. It's a pretty ingenious approach, connecting with expressive trends within this middle grade age group.

Nevertheless, I found myself flipping back to the front of the chapter to remind myself who was narrating, and I began to wonder why. Why does alternating POV work seemingly so much more easily in YA vs. MG? I came up with a couple of possible reasons: 1) the dual characters in YA, as in this MG, tend to divide up along gender lines, but in the YA case, love enters into the dynamic, and so we readers get two different viewpoints on love. 2) It helps that in the dual YA I've read, somebody usually is turning into, say, a werewolf, or other monster. The human/monster dichotomy goes a long way in keeping characters separate. 3) I've also read adult lit with alternating POV when both characters are of the same gender. Usually, in that case, age tends to differentiate characters and their views of the world are thus seen through the lens of more or less life experience.

Despite these de facto differences that may make it easier to write more distinctly different older protagonists, I still believe alternating POV can work better in middle grade. I'd love to hear from anyone who has read Always October and whether they had the same experience, or if you've got a suggestion for a middle grade title in which the alternating POV worked well. I'm on the hunt!

For more great summer adventures, paddle (here in the midwest anyway) over to Barrie Summy's website!

The Book Review Club - Don't Call Me Ishmael

Don't Call Me Ishmael
Michael Gerard Bauer
MG/YA

If the cold, dreary, dark days of January have blanketed you, this is just the right read. Don't Call Me Ishmael is Bud, not Buddy hilarious and set in Australia, where, currently, it is summer! So pull up a chair and toast your toes on the warmth and humor of this story.

Basic plot: Ishmael Leseur, a Year Nine student (that's down under for ninth grader), suffers from ILS, Ishmael Leseur Syndrome, which is Ishmael's name for his particular brand of adolescent/early teeanage agony. It's made up of a "crawl in a hole" embarrassing story why he parents named him after one of literature's most renowned protagonists, a bully who teases him about said name, a girl whom he is crazy for but who doesn't know he exists, and a group of misfit friends who are constantly getting themselves into embarrassment squared messes.

I discovered this book in, of all things, German (although the author is from and story set in Australia, so no worries, you can easily get it in English). My husband comes from ye olde country and we've raised our daughters bi-lingually, which has meant a lot of audiobooks "auf Deutsch". I chose this title for its length. Shameful, I know, but it was six hours long instead of the meager two so many middle grade German audible books come in at. So there you have it, random parameters (barrage young ears with as much second language as possible) unearthed a humor goldmine.

I wish I could say I know how Bauer does it, but I don't, which is why I've gotten the other two books in this series to get behind his humor trick. He is spot on with adolescent funny. My daughters and I laugh out loud in the car on the way to school every morning. Me, maybe more. The agony of teenagerdom maybe hits a little too close to home for barrel laughs for them. Theirs is more the "somebody else is going through this?!?" ha-ha-whew.

So there you have it. Pick up a copy of Don't Call Me Ishmael and start 2015 off with a good laugh and an uproarious story. For more cheer in these bleak months, check out the reviews on Barrie Summy's website (and pray that groundhog doesn't see his shadow!)

The Book Review Club - Anna Was Here

Anna was Here
Jane Kutz
middle grade

I'm stretching ye olde reviewing skills again with my first review after the summer siesta of the Book Review Club. Fortunately, Jane Kurtz makes my work so much easier. Anna was Here was a fun, entertaining, timeless story. Dare I say, it's a meat and potatoes book cloaked in chocolate pudding. They don't get any better than that!

Plot synopsis: Anna, daughter of a minister and university professor, must move to Kansas when her father accepts a temporary post as pastor to an ailing church in a small town. Catch: the small town is filled with relatives and uneasy family history.

This story is as much about mending broken ties in a community and family as it is about the change and discomfort that comes from a big move and new start. What struck me is how evenly balanced this story is. All of the parts - character, plot, setting - work in harmony. None is louder than the others. They each take center stage for appropriate but not prolonged solos.

While there is a religious element to this story, Kurtz does an excellent job of, again, balancing. Religion doesn't take over. The story doesn't become about religion, or faith, or belief, or what one person believes in lieu of another. Rather, it remains another story element, nicely blended, fulfilling the role Kurtz sets out for it, which is, interestingly, both dividing and unifying. 

All of that got me to thinking about voice. I've heard the term described as so many different things, not the least of which is the tone of a piece, or an author's style. Anna was Here made me rethink those. After all, they already have their own iconic terminology. But voice is still missing its fundamental definition (at least for me, it was). So I came up with my own: voice is the result of a writer's blend of style, tone, character, setting, plot, and the various other parts of story. In other words, voice isn't any one thing. It's what is created when all of the parts are blended and create something greater than the sum of those parts = voice.

I'm pretty sure I haven't reinvented the definitional wheel on voice, but it finally makes sense to me. Thanks Jane Kurtz!

Other fall delights, are a finger's stretch away at Barrie Summy's blog. Happy reading!

The Book Review Club - Lara's Gift

Lara's Gift
Annemarie O'Brien
middle grade

I thought about doing this book set in Russia in February since  the coldest days I've ever spent in the world were in Russia in February, but this story is too good to wait a month.

So here we go!

If you love dogs, if you love conflict, and if you love visions, you'll love Lara's Gift. The basic premise - Lara, daughter of the kennel master for an aristocratic breeder of borzoi in Russia living shortly before the Russian Revolution wants to grow up to become the kennel master, an almost unheard of feat, given she is a girl. She also has prescient visions about the dogs, which, given the role Rasputin and his "visions" played in Russian politics makes for a dangerous situation for Lara.

The story begins with the birth of a litter and Lara's vision about the runt, Zar, her father would put down. Lara convinces him otherwise, but in return she must raise the dog, a challenge she readily accepts. Flash forward 3 years and Zar's and Lara's stories begin to unfold together as her family attempts to prepare her for marriage, but her visions of Zar begin to come true, putting him, her, and other dogs in the kennel in danger.

Spoiler alert  (for all of you who love books about dogs, or have readers who do, but worry about the dead dog factor) - This book does have a dead dog, BUT, it's not Zar, and it's also not a dog we really come to care about, which makes it a lot more bearable.

The setting of this book is such a breath of fresh air in kidlit. Russia! How many children's books are set in Russia?!? Culturally, it's a smorgasbord of other. Also, it's way more accessible for the slightly older audience, who enjoy Russian literature but, say, gave up after 500 pages into War and Peace and called a truce. 

Stylistically, O'Brien interweaves multiple, related plots with ease. Her characters are genuine, believable and interesting. And she is gifted in her ability to make a foreign culture so accessible. At the climax, however, I felt the emotional conflict inside Lara gave way to pragmatism perhaps a little too easily. Without spoiling the ending, let me say (rather vaguely), Lara's sacrifice isn't given enough emotional weight, which diminishes what would otherwise have been a far more bittersweet (Russian?) and satisfying ending for me.

I understand the O'Brien's plot choice. The audience isn't predominantly an adult one. How far can we go as children's writers to do justice to the emotional reality of choices without overwhelming our younger audience?

Full disclosure -  I know Annemarie from my MFA at Vermont College; however, I was not solicited to write a review and purchased this book with my own rubles. 

For more warm winter wonders, sled on over to Barrie Summy's website!

The Book Review Club - Mockingbird

Mockingbird
Kathryn Erskine
middle grade/ya

Every once in a while I run across one of those stories with a main character so beyond the bounds of my everyday existence I marvel at how anyone could create her/him and do so in such a believable way.

Erskine has done so with her character, Caitlin. A fifth-grader, Caitlin has Asperger's Syndrome. She's really smart but has a really tough time understanding and expressing emotion. Maneuvering through life means learning an exhausting list of facial expressions that decode what what people are thinking and/or what they really mean. Add to that that the the person who helped her maneuver the world, her older brother, has been killed in a school shooting.

Erskine bites off a huge chunk of storytelling with her character and the external event of a school shooting. She maneuvers both phenomenally. Caitlin is one of the best characters I've read lately. I had no idea what it's like inside the mind of a child with Asperger's. Erskine gives her readers a glance. It's a glance that doesn't pity. It doesn't minimize. It is. As such, I came to both empathize and understand Caitlin. It's a phenomenal bit of writing. Add to it weaving Caitlin's story seamlessly together with the affects of a school shooting on a community and exploring how to find "closure" and this work moves from phenomenal to unforgettable.

The one aspect of this novel that I was less impressed with was that it, like When You Reach Me, relies on an outside piece of art, in this instance To Kill a Mockingbird, to carry part of the story. One day I may do this myself and kick myself for not understanding or for finding fault with this particular writer's tool at present, but when a writer can weave as well as Erskine, story doesn't need outside art to support it, or deepen the emotional resonance. It's already there. And there in spades. For me, bringing in the outside world in this way detracts from the story being told. It pulls me outside Caitlin's story. It also expects a lot from that external art and the reader. I'd hazard a guess that not many children today have seen, To Kill a Mockingbird. Thus, what effect will the film really have on the reader? Wouldn't a fictional film do the job even better by staying within story by being a created part of it?

If you're looking for a deep story about school shootings, how they affect a community, what it must be like to "feel" and perceive the world as a person with Asperger's all wrapped into a story that pulls you toward it in a gentle but insistent way, read Mockingbird. There is so much here. Much to discuss. Critique. Enjoy. Ponder. And grow from.

Read it.

For other great Spring diversions, hop over to Barrie Summy's website. She's got temptations galore!

The Book Review Club - Moon over Manifest

Moon over Manifest
Clare Venderpool
middle grade

When a book wins an award as prestigious as the Newbery, I am burning with curiosity to read it. Can I learn something new? Any tricks of the trade hidden amongst the pages? Character development done in a new way? And what didn't work? Because we writers are all human and we make mistakes, but how does an award-winner make mistakes and make the piece still work?

With great anticipation, I downloaded Moon over Manifest to my new iPad. Yes, the virgin iPad read was a Newbery.

Basic plot summary - Abilene Tucker is sent to the town of Manifest by her father to live indefinitely while he works the railroad during the Great Depression. There, she learns the town's past, as well as her father's, which redeems Abilene and her father's relationship, heals old wounds, and rejuvenates a tired town.

There is a lot to like and to learn from in this book. Vanderpool does an amazing job of weaving multiple different storytelling patterns together to create her story. There is Abilene's narrative, the Hungarian woman's, and letters from Ned to Jinx, and the newspaper clippings. If a writer has to skip back and forth in time, this method of using multiple perspectives to fill in backstory is pretty creative and works well because it keeps the process of storytelling fresh.

There were a few things I wasn't so sure about. First, this is the first book I've read that I found myself editing as I went along. Now, this may be a side effect of an intensive MFA program, but I found this piece, while well-crafted, nevertheless hastily edited. There were extra words, poorly worded phrases, whole sentences that needed to be honed. I wondered if this is a sign of the increasingly crunched time of editors, or my better-trained internal ear, or both. Either way, the result was that these spots pulled me out of story and made me stumble in my reading.

Second, the character of Jinx gave me some trouble. He is in the 1918 story the Hungarian woman tells Abilene about the town of Manifest. We learn early on that Abilene hopes it is her father. As the reader, we are pretty certain it is her father. By taking away this element of surprise, the flashback story deflates. It is still interesting to read but then it just becomes a way for Abilene to learn more about her dad.

Finally, Abilene's internal growth seems fairly limited. True, she has to do physical labor for the Hungarian woman to learn the story of her father, but her processing of what she learns seems pretty minimal. I wanted her to have to struggle more, to grow internally. For me, she feels like much the same kid at the end of the story as she was at the beginning, just with more information about her dad. She didn't feel too damaged when she arrived, and she integrated herself well into the town while she was there. She didn't make any enemies. She made friends. She helped various characters. She realized what was her father's shortcoming and how to fix it, but that isn't the same as internal growth that the character herself needs.

All questions aside, if you are looking for a Katherine Paterson-like read, pick up Moon over Manifest. You won't cry (this is not something I consider a bad thing. I get weary of books that make me cry). You will enjoy the historical flashback and multi-layered storytelling technique that weave together a story about healing a father-daughter relationship.

And for more great reads, hop over to Barrie Summy's website. It's chalked full with winter wonders!

The Book Review Club - Summerland

This month for the Book Review Club, I curled up with Michael Chabon's, Summerland. I chose the piece because I'd never read anything by Chabon. Simple as that. I didn't know he'd won the Pulitzer Prize before choosing the book. I also (guilty cough) didn't know how good-looking he is. Wow. A good-looking man who can write? Compelling.

As is Summerland.

The story is about 12 year-old Ethan Feld, whose mother has died. His father, an engineer, wants to build dirigibles for a living, but as balloons that people can use individually. He moves Ethan and himself from Colorado to a small island, Clam Island, off of the coast of Washington to fulfill his dream.

His father also has another passion, baseball. Ethan doesn't share that passion, at least not at the beginning of the book. He's horrible at baseball, but plays for his father, winning himself the nickname Dog Boy because he stands at the plate waiting and trying to get a walk - like a dog - rather than trying to hit the ball.

Games on Clam Island take place on a narrow section of the island that, unlike the rest of it, is constantly sunny. Oddly sunny. Out of the ordinary sunny. Ethan soon learns why. The section of land is pleached - co-joined - with an alternate universe, The Summerlands.

The Summerlands is inhabited by ferishers - fairies - giants, sasquatsches, and the stuff of legends and old adventures. What's more, everybody in the Summerlands plays baseball. EVERYBODY. Much to Ethan's surprise, he's recruited by a strange old scout to play baseball for the Summerlands, and learns, when he journeys between his world and theirs, that it's for more than a world cup, it's for the world as we know it.

Wily old Coyote - the book is full of a rich mixture of various legends and folklore, this one being American Indian - is trying to bring about the end of the world. Ethan must somehow stop him. Coyote, however, gets a hold of Ethan's father and tricks Mr. Feld into reproducing the picofiber material that he created for his dirigibles for Coyote's end-of-the-world plans.

In the meantime, Ethan races across the Summerlands to stop Coyote. The trickster is planning on poisoning the Lodgepole, the tree, the brancehs of which both hold up and connect the Summerlands, the Middling (where we live) and the Winterlands (wher Coyote and his band of tricketers like to hang out), and the Gleaming (where spirits reside) - the alternate universes.

The tree is fed by a well, and Coyote wants to poison the well by using Mr. Feld's picofibers to transfer Nothingness down to the very roots of the tree. To get to the well, Ethan - like an hero - has to go through a series of adventures, most of them involving some form of baseball, which test his character and help him find his true strength and courage.

If it sounds rich and complex, it is. Chabon deftly uses 500 pages to introduce and bring to life this intricate and moving tale. While perhaps the greatest criticism I've both experienced and read about the piece is its slower pacing, the longer I've thought about it, the less inclined I am to mark it up as a fault of the book. Ethan's dad, Mr. Feld, says more than once that "a baseball game is nothing but a great slow contraption for getting you to pay attention to the cadence of a summer day." Chabon creates and weaves into the story steady, relaxed, even pacing, I think, to get the reader herself to slow down, to chew on the gristle of the story, and to perhaps, if one can slow down enough, relax into and get lost in the journey, rather than race pell-mell through its adventures and mishaps toward that all-encompassing climax. Of course, the book does have a climax - one that will you make smile and remember fondly your own hours spent in a game up pick up baseball - but I'd venture to say, after having traveled through Summerland at a leisurely pace, this read is a lot more about the journey being the goal, as much as the climax of the story.

So if you're up for a relaxed adventure rich with tongue and cheek as well as a smattering of the world's collection of mesmerizing folklore, that will leave you yearning for the Summerlands as much as Ethan, pick up Chabon's bases loaded, sunny day, just you and your bat against the tomfoolery of the world's oldest trickster Summerland.

Go on, pick it up....you know you want to.

For more awesome reviews, mosey on over to our fearless leader's blog, Barrie Summy, whose put up links to them all.