Olive & Beatrix: The Not-So-Itty-Bitty Spiders

Just because you happen to be a good reader doesn't mean you always want to read challenging books.  At our house, there is a variety of reading materials on hand for all of us.  I am just as likely to catch Frances and Gloria poring over a Lego catalog as I am to find them reading Secrets of Walt Disney World.  In fact, both of these events happened in the past week at our house.  Frances and Gloria read the catalog, picking out the sets they each would like.  And each night after they went to bed, I would hear Gloria reading Secrets to Frances at her request.  That's the thing about readers.  Once they get the bug, they read.

What I've also noticed about Frances and Gloria is that they like to read both a large variety of materials, but that what they read is also on a variety of reading levels.  Just because they can read harder books doesn't mean that is the best thing for them every day.  That's why we love the Branches series by Scholastic - there is something satisfying about completing a book in one sitting.  I find that Frances and Gloria still are building their reading stamina, and can get discouraged when they tackle longer books.  They can build fluency in reading, no matter what they read.

I was so lucky to get this new title in the Branches series during the Cybils review process.  I instantly fell in love with Olive and Beatrix, and so did the girls.  I bet you will too!!

Olive and Beatrix are twins.  The story is told from Olive's point of view.  She sounds fairly matter of fact as she notes "Beatrix make look like an ordinary girl, but she's not.  She is a witch." (p. 2).  Olive breezes right on to point out that "I may also look like an ordinary girl.  That's because I am.  I'm not a witch at all." (p. 3)  These twins are not identical, but Olive is okay with that.  Each page of this particular spread has a picture of one of the girls with some important things pointed out.  While Beatrix has a talking pet pig and a "head full of tricks", Olive has pet bugs and a "head full of smarts".  Even from the introduction, you can tell that Olive doesn't feel that Beatrix's talents outpace her own.

By the way, the whole becoming a witch thing?  Olive explains that Beatrix is a witch because she was born precisely at midnight on a full moon.  Needless to say, Olive was not.  But instead of magic spells and tricks, Olive loves science.  She and her best friend Eddie are always working on a project.  While they are experimenting, though, Beatrix is always playing tricks on them and causing their ideas to go haywire.

Olive and Eddie get tired of Beatrix's mischief and decide to play a trick of their own.  They know that Beatrix is afraid of spiders, so they plan to dump a whole pile of them on Beatrix.  And their plan works perfectly!  The problem comes when that gaggle of spiders runs through a growth potion Beatrix had conjured up.  It takes all of them to help contain the not-so-itty-bitty spiders!

As I mentioned before, these twins are very different.  Olive is confident in her science and her brain.  Olive has Eddie, and their friendship seems collaborative and supportive.  Olive operates very differently than Beatrix.  I wouldn't exactly say that Beatrix is the bad guy here, but it's pretty clear that she doesn't have close friends like Eddie.  She has her talking pig, Houston, who comments on the action wryly - when Beatrix is screaming, covered in spiders, Houston calmly steps over to Beatrix's dropped phone and announces to the caller "Miss Beatrix will have to call you back." (p. 14) - but that's all she has.  Beatrix seems bossier, not as friendly.  It takes some effort for her to work with Eddie and Olive to deal with her overgrown spiders.  Even then she peppers her dialogue with insults ("Step aside, dull skulls!" (p. 37))  I will be interested to see how these girls' relationship progresses through the series - will they learn to meet in the middle?  Become friends, even?  We'll have to wait and see.

One of the things I love most about the Branches group of titles is the diversity of text and illustration within each book.  In The Not-So-Itty-Bitty Spiders , there is such a great mix of text and illustration, keeping readers on their toes.  Even though there is only a line or two of actual text on each page, Stadelmann incorporates text throughout the illustrations too.  There is a map to examine, with captions to help the reader get situated.  There is dialogue in many of the pictures too, giving this a graphic novel feel.  Readers are absorbing the plot and characterization without spending a lot of time on the text.  It makes the book feel breezy, not onerous.

And this brings me back to my original thoughts about reading.  Frances and I are reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets out loud.  As we all know about the Harry Potter books, each chapter can take a long time to read.  We read for twenty minutes, and maybe get through five pages.  So it's fun to be able to read something like this, too.  The Branches series also can successfully tempt the reluctant reader with a book that is a chapter book, yet there is a manageable amount of text for them.  The reading level assigned by Scholastic is Grade 2, but I can see the plot appealing to a much wider range of readers.  

I love the illustrations in this book too.  The palette is a little dark and moody - greens, grays, and purples - which keeps it from feeling too girly.  It is attractive to girls, with the twin sister angle, but would also appeal to boys with the magic and science emphasis (and I haven't yet mentioned the cool inventions Olive and Eddie come up with!).  The illustrations have a good deal of humor in them as the three join forces.  Magic and science don't always work well together, and that is evident in their adventures!  Both Beatrix and Olive wear comfortable clothes for what they need to do - tunics, leggings, and no-muss hair styles.  These are can-do girls and they'll take charge!

This is a series that we will definitely be watching.  I can't wait to see what else happens to these twins.  I am so glad it was nominated for a Cybil award so we could read it.

Olive & Beatrix: The Not-So-Itty-Bitty Spiders.  Amy Marie Stadelmann.  Scholastic: Branches, 2015.

sent by the publisher for review as part of the Cybils process.

The Magician's Land : Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon

Well, I think I am in hour four (?), five (?) - it is getting a little blurry - of the readathon, and I just finished The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman. 

I am not going to do much review of this book - mostly because it is the third in a series, and it would give too much away to say much.  But first I will say that this series is for adults, and has some really interesting concepts and feelings in it.  I actually wished that I had reread the other two books in the series (The Magicians and The Magician King) because it had been a few years since I read them.  This book definitely needs the other two books with all of their history, which I loved!  It was 400 pages long, and I had read about 100 pages before I started today.  I think this is the longest book I will attempt today (although A Court of Thorns and Roses is pretty long too), and it feels great to have finished it.

So far in the readathon, I've been taking a break after 45 minutes of reading to get up and do something else - eat, take a shower, etc.  It's helped me stay focused on my reading the rest of the time (another good tip from the guest posters at Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon.  I know there is no way I'll make 24 hours of reading, but I feel pretty good so far. 

On the snack front, I ate toast for breakfast early this morning, and then had the last of the smores cupcakes (recipe here).  Those cupcakes are so delicious I can hardly stand it!  Right now I am making Chex mix and it's almost done, but that is really for the girls - just doing it while I had time.

Back to the reading - going to read Perfect Fifths now and then make a library trip when I'm finished.  See you soon!

Heirs of Prophecy

First of all, I apologize for the long silence.  This early summer has been a little bumpy for me, but I have lots of posts waiting to be written, so I promise more regular posts are on their way.  Thank you for being patient with me!  I was approached to participate in a blog tour for this book, Heirs of Prophecy.  I read some reviews that interested me, and I realized I hadn’t written any blog posts about chapter books in a long time, so I decided to give it a go.  And this was a fast-paced adventure that kept me reading!

The Riverton family is going on vacation.  Their father usually plans the vacations, and he chooses some…unusual places (their last vacation featured Japanese ruins and samurai sword making).  But their dad is letting them bring the family cat, Silver, so 14 year old Ryan and 12 year old Aaron figure it can’t be that bad.  Well, their vacation doesn’t go quite as planned.  The family ends up outside of Tucson, Arizona, exploring caves by canoe.  Suddenly, there is a loud rumble, and the cave collapses around them.

This is the Riverton family’s introduction to Trimoria, a world they could not have ever dreamed of.  And as they stumble through the forests, trying to find civilization, some unexplainable things begin to happen to them all.  Ryan, the oldest son, has what looks like lightning shoot out from his fingers.  Aaron, who had been previously described as “diminutive”, shows amazing strength – lifting rocks as if they were hollow.  And their mother and father, too, begin to exhibit powers they never had before.  As for Silver, well, Silver has grown enormous and even smarter than he was before.

They are incredibly lucky to find the Protector of the area, Throll, on their second day, and even luckier that he believes their story, even though it seems farfetched.  As Protector-General of the land, Throll is able to wield some power over the townspeople and gets them to believe that Jared Riverton (the boys’ father)is his old friend from another part of the land.  Oddly, Jared Riverton had been interested in blacksmithing back home in the United States, and had created a smithy in their backyard.  Here in Aubgherle, there is an urgent need for a blacksmith.

Magic is outlawed in Trimoria, and people who exhibit any type of magical powers (especially babies) mysteriously disappear.  So the odd skills that the Rivertons have gained need to be hidden from spies in the town of Aubgherle.  They practice these skills in secret, trying to gain control of their powers and learn how they function.  It becomes evident that while Ryan is the strongest wizard, his father is also a wizard of some power.  Aaron is freakishly strong, and begins to learn a variety of fighting skills and strategies.  And their mother, Aubrey, is an incredible healer.

But somehow the wizard who controls the country of Trimoria, Azazel, who is evil, becomes apprised of this unusual family and sets out to destroy them.  At the same time a “small” ogre (only seven feet tall at the start of the novel! And a vegetarian!) named Ohaobbok joins Throll’s family and the Rivertons, and he retells a strange prophecy, one that includes himself and the Riverton family.  The Rivertons’ inclusion in the prophecy makes sense.  Trimoria is nowhere near as technologically advanced as present-day United States, but the skills the Rivertons have honed in their American lives seem to translate well here.  For instance, the blacksmithing (along with the samurai sword making vacation) comes in very handy.  Jared can actually bring modern technology to creating swords in Trimoria, giving his swords an advantage.  Both Ryan and Aaron have studied martial arts for years, and that gives them an advantage as well.  All these things seem to point to their destiny – to fulfill the prophecy.

I don’t want to tell too much of the plot, because exploring the country along with the Rivertons and discovering where their destiny lies is part of the ride.  And it is definitely a ride.  The book is full of magic, elements of fantasy, and some crazy fights.  Everything is enthralling, and keeps you reading.   This book sped by – I would pick it up and find I had suddenly read 100 pages!  It is easy enough for a fifth grader to read, and perfectly suited for a middle grade audience, including plenty of adventure and danger.

The world-building Rothman does is easy to understand.  I hate fantasy books where I spend so much time figuring out how things work, or how the universe was created.  I often feel that that holds me back from really engaging with the plot, and I’ve been known to not finish fantasies that get overly complicated.  While it is a mystery how the Rivertons arrived in Trimoria (the back of the book calls it a ‘fluke of nature’, but could it be something or someone else?),  the country of Trimoria itself isn’t overly complicated.  It seems to be pretty squarely set in something resembling the Middle Ages, with an emphasis on iron, mining, and blacksmithing.  People fight with swords, daggers and bows and arrows, not guns and bombs.  And the types of creatures that populate the forests are also familiar – dwarves that mine ore, elves in an amazing magical forest glen, and ogres.  But the characterization helps keep these traditional types interesting .  I really loved the ogre, Ohaobbok – he is sweet, and yet fights for this family he has come to love.

This book includes many of the “big” fantasy themes – good v. evil, the power of magic, but adds in some new twists.  It felt fresh, and made me want to continue on to see how this series gets to the final war and an epic battle.  For there will be one – it has been foretold.  Generations of Trimorians have the same dream, and the Riverton family is front and center in that dream.

I do have a couple of minor quibbles with Rothman, though.  I have a cat of my own, and I would never take him on a family vacation.  Especially if I knew that vacation would involve canoeing along a river in addition to a plane ride.  I don’t know many cats who would agree to those conditions!  Also the Riverton family doesn’t seem to articulate any desire to return to the United States.  They seem perfectly happy in Trimoria, and while I’ve already said that they are destined to be there, I can’t help wondering if they will mention a longing for home at some point. 

Also, I would have liked a glossary or pronunciation guide for the names.  I see that book two (titled Tools of Prophecy) is already out in e-book and will be out in hardback next month, so maybe he will consider it for the prequel or book three, both of which are in the works.  I think it’s important to guide readers to the “correct” Trimorian pronunciation for names like Ohaobbok (oh, how I’d love to say that name!), Ealuanni, Azazel, and others.  The elven names are particularly tricky.  So, please, Mr. Rothman, help us out!

All in all, though, this is a fun, thrilling adventure.  I would love to know more about the Rivertons and their adventures in Trimoria, and I hope you’ll take time to explore along with them!

Rothman , Michael A.  Heirs of Prophecy.  M & S Publishing, 2012.

Sent by TLC Book Tours for review as part of a blog tour.

Guardian of the Dead

It's late and I'm trying to squeeze in a blog post before it gets too much later, but I wanted to write about this book before I have to return it.  I once again have a bunch of overdue books or books coming due in the next week, so I've got to get reading!

Guardian of the Dead was on the William C. Morris YA Debut Award shortlist this year, so it went on my reading list.  I had read a review of the book a few months ago, when I was still ordering books for the library, and it seemed intriguing.  It begins in a boarding school, and I am a total sucker for boarding school books.  The book also takes place on New Zealand, and the information about Maori culture and society brings a new life to supernatural fiction.

Ellie is at boarding school because her parents are on a year-long trip.  She is asked by a friend to help out in a nearby production of "A Midsummer's Night Dream" because she has tae kwon do experience and can help with the fight scenes.  It is through this play that she begins to become aware that some things around her are not adding up.  There's a mysterious boy who keeps confusing her, a woman without pupils, and a serial killer who is stealing people's eyes.

Her connection with the mysterious boy, Mark, becomes deeper as more of her own latent power is awakened.  This connects her as well to the world Mark represents - the world on the other side.  The biggest threat to this world comes from the patupaiarehe - beings who live in the mists around the island and are yearning to become immortal.  But if they gain immortality, it will threaten to bring destruction to all of New Zealand.

I felt like this book was unique in several ways.  First of all, the introduction to Maori culture and mythology is something that American readers don't have exposure to.  But Healey does a terrific job of giving the context to the unfamiliar language and cultural norms.  There is also a brief glossary of Maori terms that are used throughout New Zealand so that readers can refer to it - even non-Maori speakers use these terms regularly.   This book is strongly rooted in Maori mythology, but Healey draws parallels between Maori, Greek and Roman mythologies.  Ellie is a Classics student, so she explains the parallels to readers in a natural way.

Above all, this book is a suspenseful adventure.  It is complex, with many layers of story and characters.  And most importantly for me, it is intelligent.  I am not a big fan of supernatural fiction, so the addition of smart characters who are not afraid to be smart makes the supernatural more palatable.  Ellie is not the sort of female main character who will dither and wring her hands.  She's scared and unsure at times, but she is also exploring her power and trying to find her way through what is rapidly becoming a nightmare.

This is a really strong, smart book - I recommend it to you!

Guardian of the Dead.  Karen Healey.  Little, Brown and Co., 2010.
borrowed from Lewis & Clark library

April and Esme, Tooth Fairies

I first read about this book in The Horn Book Magazine (Sept/Oct 2010), where it was given a starred review.  When I flipped through it briefly, it seemed a little long for Frances and Gloria (now 3 1/2 and 2), and so I set it aside.  Christmas and our vacation passed by, and we didn't pick it up.  Last week we finally sat down to read it, and I was immediately charmed by April and Esme, Tooth Fairies. 
April and Esme (7 3/4 and 6 years old) get a call on April's cell phone, requesting that they come pick up a little boy's first lost tooth.  They've never done this before, and in fact their tooth fairy parents believe they are still too young.  But the little girls say they've promised, and off they fly.  There are challenges in the tooth pick-up (including the little boy waking up unexpectedly), but the girls handle themselves capably and return home successfully with their very first tooth.

This book is pure magic.  Graham uses the details of our daily life and adds a little sparkle of fairy dust to them.  A full-size illustration of England's M42 freeway (probably not the British term for it...) shows trucks speeding past a tree trunk on the side of the road.  It's only when you look more closely at the tree trunk that you see the tiny fairy house at its base.  There is a wonderful series of illustrations where April and Esme are telling their mother about their first job while she bathes.  Her wings spread out over the sides of the tub, their mother carefully listens, tattoo visible on her upper arm.  Then as she dries her hair, she playfully uses her hairdryer to blow Esme into the air.  The charm is in all these little details of home and fairy life, and these are the sorts of details that children will pore over and find magical.

While Graham is telling the story of the tooth fairies and their first tooth trip, he is also bringing the tooth fairy's traditional story into today's world.  April's call comes in on her cell phone (what is the tooth fairy's phone number?),  and during a crisis in the story, she texts her mom for experienced advice.  Their father is a trademark Graham father - long hair tied back in a rumpled ponytail while he works in his workshop (where teeth wave from the rafters).  There is a pleasing balance of modern and traditional here, and the comfort of the tooth fairies and their magic wins over young readers.

Graham uses a really interesting method to emphasize the fairies' size - a combination of full-size and panel illustrations.  He uses full-size illustrations to remind us how truly small and young the little girls are - as when they stand at the foot of the stairs, ready to collect that first tooth.  But then Graham uses smaller panel or strip illustrations to track the plot and focus on the girls' pluck and strength.  This also gives a sense of movement as the girls use the winds to soar.

As a mother, I love that the parents allow the girls to soar - not without worry - but with pride and love.  And I love that the little girls (exactly the same 18 months apart as mine) need each other to succeed and be confident.  They rely on each other and are wonderful sisters.  And when Frances had read this multiple times (both with me and by herself), I happened to ask her what she wanted to be.  She told me she wanted to be a tooth fairy!
This book is a real winner - magical, loving and full of the power of family.  Wonderful!!

April and Esme, Tooth Fairies  - Bob Graham.  Candlewick Press, 2010.
borrowed from Lewis & Clark Library