Black Radishes and Pink Rabbits

There is a moment early in Black Radishes by Susan Lynn Meyer (Delacorte, 2010) when 11-year-old Gustave Becker has to pack his things prior to leaving Paris for the small town of Saint-Georges in advance of the Nazi occupation.  Aside from his clothes, he is allowed to bring only a few books and toys.  He chooses the books easily--his Boy Scout Manual and two favorites, The Three Musketeers and Around the World in Eighty Days--but the toys prove more difficult:

[H]ow could he choose only one?  Gustave picked up his new sailboat and ran a finger over its shiny blue and white paint.  Uncle David had given him and Jean-Paul each a sailboat last summer to sail in the fountains in the parks.  Saint-Georges was near a river, so a boat would be good to have.  But then he saw Monkey, partly hidden under his train set on the bed, and his heart tightened.  He had almost forgotten him.  Monkey's head tilted slightly to one side.  A gold post in his ear and the bright black, beady eyes looking out from his face gave him a mischievous air.

At this point I almost shouted, "Gustave, take Monkey!"  I didn't want him to make the same mistake that Anna does in Judith Kerr's When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (1971); packing, instead of the titular rabbit who had been "her companion ever since she could remember," a newly acquired woolly dog.  Fortunately (spoiler alert), he doesn't, and Monkey goes on to play an important role in the book's climactic scene at the border between occupied and free France.

Black Radishes is a beautifully crafted, impeccably researched novel (and a 2011 Sydney Taylor Honor Award Winner for Older Readers).  Debut author Meyer, an English professor at Wellesley, was inspired by her father's experience in WWII France, although she makes clear (in an informative author's note as well as an interview at BookPage, January 2011) that she's writing historical fiction; and I think Black Radishes is all the stronger for that.  Meyer is also working on a companion novel, tentatively titled Green and Unripe Fruit, which follows Gustave after he and his family emigrate to America in 1942.

And just in case you don't know what black radishes (which also figure in that climactic scene) look like, here they are.

  

Heart of a Samurai

This book was already on my to-read list when it was recognized with a Newbery Honor last month. I had picked it up from the new book display at the library (the same new book display from which I picked up and then put back the eventual Newbery winner, Moon over Manifest.  I'm still waiting for that book) on the strength of the gorgeous cover art by Jillian Tamaki; and the jacket copy, which promised "An action-packed historical novel set on the high seas!" Not to mention samurai. Which is a little misleading; the actual book is more complicated than that.

Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus (Amulet, 2010) is a fictionalized account of the life of Nakahama (John) Manjiro, who is believed to be the first Japanese person to set foot in America.  A poor fisherman's son, Manjiro was shipwrecked off the coast of Japan in 1841 and rescued by an American whaling ship.  The captain of the ship brought Manjiro home with him to New England, where he studied for several years before making his way back to Japan.  In keeping with Japan's isolationist policies at the time, Manjiro was immediately taken into custody; but he was later released, reunited with his mother, and given the rank of samurai.  His diplomatic work eventually helped open Japan to the world.

Heart of a Samurai encompasses Manjiro's entire journey; the central section of the book is concerned with his time in America. On a farm. Manjiro himself is very likable character: thoughtful, observant, optimistic, and funny; and the book is at its best when it stays close to his thoughts and observations about the differences, practical and philosophical, between Japan and America; and to his realizations about them both.

As I was reading, some incidents and characters struck me as more "fictionalized" than "historical."  And as it turns out, these were precisely the ones that Preus, in her Historical Notes, acknowledges having invented "to provide conflict and advance the story as well as to acknowledge the prejudice and ill will that Manjiro faced."  I wish Heart of a Samurai had been either more fictionalized or less; as it is, it's an uneasy balance--probably not unlike Manjiro's own.

[See also Pam at Mother Reader's take on Heart of a Samurai during her Newbery Discussion Week.]

I, Juan de Pareja and Grandma's Gift

The portrait of Juan de Pareja in last week's Middle Grade Gallery was painted by Diego Vezquez in Rome, 1650.  Congratulations to Jennifer of Jean Little Library for correctly identifying the source of the descriptions, Elizabeth Borton de Trevino's 1966 Newbery Award-winning novel, I, Juan de Pareja (this gorgeous edition is from Square Fish, 2008; the tagline on the cover reads "The story of a great painter and the slave he helped become an artist").  Apparently, the portrait was such a startling likeness of Pareja that when he himself unveiled it to prospective patrons of Velazquez (in a nice bit of theater which also appears in the book, as quoted below), they didn't know whether to speak to him or the portrait:

Then I said, "I understand that you are interested in portraiture, and I thought you might like to look at this one, your honor."

I flung back the cover and set up the portrait by my side. I had taken care to dress in the same clothes and also to wear the white collar, and I could hear the Duke gasp.

"By Bacchus!" he shouted.  "That is a portrait!"

I think the tagline gets it backward, but the story is indeed as much about Velazquez, who is portrayed as thoughtful and reserved, a true friend to slave and king alike; as it is about Juan.  There are cameo appearances by other artists of the day as well, including Rubens and Murillo (and a visit to the workshop of a sculptor of religious images, Gil Medina); as a historical novel it gives a good sense of seventeenth-century Spain.  One of my favorite Newbery books.

The portrait of Juan de Pareja also plays an important part in this year's Pura Belpre Illustrator Award-winning book, Grandma's Gift by Eric Velasquez (presumably no relation; Walker, 2010), in which a boy and his grandmother visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see it.  I haven't read this book yet, but it's on the hold list.

Finally, it's proven difficult to pin down Pareja's expression in just one word!  It looks like I'm going to have to settle for complicated.

Turtle in Paradise

We read, or rather listened to, Jennifer L. Holm's Turtle in Paradise (Random House, 2010) under the best possible circumstances--while driving to the Keys (that would be Paradise) during last year's summer vacation--so I have fond memories of it and was very happy (if also a little surprised) to see it get a Newbery Honor.  Turtle in Paradise is in some ways a typical Newbery pick, at least this year: it's historical fiction; it's about a girl (that would be Turtle); she's sent away to live with relatives in a new and unfamiliar place.  That describes three of the five Newbery books this year (including the winner).  Narrow the historical part down to the Great Depression and you still have two (including this one and the winner).

Which is not to say that Turtle isn't a worthy pick: I happen to know a carful of people who liked it lots!  I checked it out of the library and reread it as soon as we got home even, and my only complaint was that the ending felt a little rushed (I was afraid I might have drifted off and missed something, actually).  But it was always funny, sour and sweet like a Key West cut-up, a great summer read or read-aloud.

Like Penny from Heaven and Our Only May Amelia, Holm's other Newbery Honor books, Turtle in Paradise was inspired by family history; and the Author's Note includes family photographs (I love these) as well as a testimonial to the effectiveness of a certain diaper-rash formula--Holm uses it on her own babies' bungies.

[In other news for fans of Jennifer Holm, a sequel to Our Only May Amelia at last!  The Trouble with May Amelia (Atheneum) will be out in April.]

My ALA Awards reaction post

Surprise! I didn't watch the webcast (being somewhere over the North Atlantic at the time), so I can't confirm whether or not someone actually jumped out from behind a couch to announce the winner of this year's Newbery Medal, debut author Clare Vanderpool for Moon over Manifest (Delacorte), but he or she may as well have. I haven't even read it yet!  The Caldecott Medal likewise went to debut illustrator Erin Stead for A Sick Day for Amos McGee (written by her husband, Philip Christian Stead; Roaring Brook). I haven't read that one either! They're both on my hold list now, though.  Congratulations all around!

 
More reactions and reviews to come!  It's good to be home.

2011 Newbery Hopefuls

My Newbery Hopefuls tend to have more hope than my Caldecotts, but this year, who knows?  I'm very deliberately leaving off a few books which may be strong contenders but were most definitely Not For Me.  These, I loved.

• A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner (I might love this one best).
• Alchemy and Meggy Swann (Ye toads and vipers! I'm still in London, after all).
• The Dreamer by Pam Munoz  Ryan (Maybe it will win the Belpre, too).
• One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia (See my story here).
• Only One Year by Andrea Cheng (For younger readers).
• Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes (Reviewed here).
• The Shadows (Probably not a Newbery, but it's my list! Reviewed here).
• Something I'm forgetting, I'm sure (See: London).

I'm wishing everyone involved, from authors to committee members to readers (and bloggers!) a good night's sleep and a happy ALA awards day.  See you on the other side--of the ocean and the announcements!

Maybe a Newbery story

Here's my story: I met Rita Williams-Garcia at ALA last summer.  She was signing One Crazy Summer (Amistad).  I hadn't come prepared to buy any books (I know; silly me!) and was counting out my loose change in hopes of having enough for one copy when someone at the booth took pity on me and let me have it for the cash I had on hand.  I was debating whether to ask Ms. Williams-Garcia to sign it to Leo or Milly and decided to ask her to sign it to both, remarking that they could fight over who got to keep it after it won the Newbery.  At that point,  the same someone (thank you!) handed over another copy and Rita came out from behind the signing table, gave me a hug and whispered, "From your lips to God's ear."  I hope so!

Searching for Shona and children's books about the Evacuation

The painting of the ruined Victorian house in last week's Middle Grade Gallery is from Searching for Shona, by Margaret J. Anderson (Knopf, 1978), a recently rediscovered childhood favorite.  After Marjorie and Shona trade places on the train platform in Edinbugh, Marjorie is evacuated to Canonbie.  She and another orphan, Anna Ray, are billeted with the Miss Campbells, middle-aged identical twins who own a dress shop.  Marjorie and Anna find the house in the painting, empty (although not yet in ruins) save for a cozy playroom in the turret.  Clairmont House becomes a refuge for them until the army requisitions it to house soldiers, and by the end of the war, the house is as the artist depicted it in the painting.

How is the painting connected to Shona?  I don't want to give it away--if a middle grade novel about two girls, one from a privileged background (Marjorie) and another with only one clue about her family (Shona), trading places during the evacuation appeals to you (don't forget the abandoned house and the identical twin sisters, either), you really should try to find a copy of Searching For Shona.  I will say that Shona's father, like John Piper (whose work I featured in the original post), turns out to have been a war artist.  But there's more to the story than that, and it's all very satisfying.

Unfortunately, I didn't get many (any) other recommendations of children's books about the evacuation.  Anna Hebner noted that in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950), the four Pevensie children are evacuated from London to the Professor's country house (Lewis himself took in evacuees at his house in Oxford).  A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones (1987) also begins with the main character's evacuation from London, although she only makes it as far the train station (this one's out of print, and Charlotte doesn't like it anyway).

As for realistic fiction, The Children's War (a blog dedicated to books written for children and young adults about WWII) has a review of In Spite of All Terror by Hester Burton (1968), and I'm looking for a copy of that one now.

But the books about the evacuation I most want to read are (perhaps not surprisingly) by Noel Streatfeild.  The first is Saplings (1945), a novel for adults about the devastating effects of the war on a middle-class family with four children.  It's available in a gorgeous Persephone Books edition (have you heard of Persephone Books?) and sounds very depressing. The second is When the Siren Wailed (1974), a children's book written at considerably more remove from the war itself, and in which three working-class children are evacuated from London.  The original edition was illustrated by Margery Gill and thankfully, it ends happily.

[See the comments for more suggestions.]

Physik

The portrait of Queen Etheldredda, known as the Awful, and her Aie-Aie featured in last week's Middle Grade Gallery is from Septimus Heap, Book Three: Physik by Angie Sage (Katherine Tegen Books, 2007).  When Silas Heap breaks the 500-year old Seal on the attic, the ghosts of the Queen and her pet step out of the portrait and proceed to wreak havoc.  Queen Etheldredda has a plan to give herself eternal life that sends Septimus back in time to serve the Queen's son Marcellus Pye, Alchemist and Physician; and the Aie-Aie spreads Sicknesse throughout the palace.

As for the portrait, we learn that the Queen was Entranced into it by none other than Marcellus, and eventually they're both (Queen and portrait; Aie-Aie, too) consumed by a Fyre.  I suppose this was necessary, but I hate to think of her official portrait being lost.  There was nothing magical about it, after all.

The books in the Septimus Heap series are the sort of fantasy novels that are pure pleasure for younger middle grade readers especially.  They're almost overstuffed with characters and creatures and spells of all sorts.  We listened to the first one, Magyk, which is beautifully read (for 12 hours!) by Allan Corduner, thus avoiding the capitalized, bolded, and magykally-spelled words in the printed text.  The chapter headings in the books themselves are nicely illustrated by Mark Zug, though; here is his rendering of Queen Etheldredda's portrait (scanned from the paperback).  Elizabethan, wouldn't you agree?

Masterpiece

The drawing of the lady and the lion featured in last week's Middle Grade Gallery is from Masterpiece by Elise Broach (Henry Holt, 2008; this is the cover of the paperback edition, SquareFish, 2010).  It's a invented work of art by a real artist, Albrecht Dürer. I chose Dürer's Stag Beetle to accompany the original post because in the book, a beetle named Marvin is indirectly called on to copy the Dürer drawing in question. It represents Fortitude, one of the four cardinal virtues; the others (Prudence, Temperance, and Justice) have all been stolen, and the museum's plan to recover them involves a forgery, a theft, and an eleven-year-old boy named James.

Masterpiece is very much in the tradition of E.L. Konigsberg's From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, which might explain why I love it.  That book won the Newbery in 1967; and while Masterpiece didn't get any Newbery honors, it did win the E.B. White Read Aloud Award for Older Readers in 2009.

It's also illustrated, in pen-and-ink of course, by one of my favorites, Kelly Murphy (see the Beastologist books, among others).  This image, scanned from my hardcover copy of Masterpiece, shows James and his father looking at Dürer's drawing in a gallery at the Met.  Hanging next to it, in a more ornate frame, is Bellini's drawing of Fortitude, a real work of art on loan from the Getty.  And if you look closely, you can even see Marvin perched on James's shoulder.

Emily's Quest

The portrait of Elisabeth Bas featured in August's Middle Grade Gallery hangs by the fireplace in the Disappointed House, as furnished by Emily Starr and Dean Priest during their ill-fated engagement in Emily's Quest by L.M. Montgomery.  This is the third and final book in the Emily series, which isn't nearly as beloved as Montgomery's Anne series (or so I am forced to conclude, since no one guessed.  Members of the Emily Starr Fan Club, please leave a comment).

I didn't love Emily either, but I still like to reread the chapter of Emily's Quest dedicated to making over the Disappointed House (it's Chapter 9), inside and out.  Montgomery describes everything, from the wallpaper in the living-room ("shadowy grey with snowy pine branches over it") to Emily's great-grandmother's wedding china (willow-ware) to the brass chessy-cat door knocker on the front porch door.  And of course, the pictures:  Lady Giovanna, Mona Lisa...and Elisabeth Bas.

Spoiler alert:  Emily breaks off her engagement to Dean when she realizes that she still loves Teddy, and the Disappointed House is boarded up again.  But years later, Dean gives the deed to the house and all it contains to Emily as a wedding gift.  I can't imagine Emily and Teddy actually living there among Dean's things, but it's always been my House of Dreams.

Does anyone else remember the Disappointed House? Or, for that matter, Anne's House of Dreams (perhaps my favorite of the Anne books)?  Which would you prefer?

Ninth Ward

Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes (Little, Brown, 2010) is dedicated to "all the children who experienced Hurricane Katrina and the levees breaking in New Orleans." Five years ago today.

The book itself is a coming-of-age story, with realistic and fantastical elements in equal measure.  Twelve-year-old narrator Lanesha and her Mama Ya-Ya can see ghosts, including the ghost of Lanesha's mother, who died birthing her.  And Mama Ya-Ya can see the future.  That future, of course, includes the hurricane and its aftermath--events that will test Lanesha and over which she must find a way to triumph.

Rhodes gives Lanesha a lovely voice, and for the first several chapters (the calm before the storm), all is well in the Ninth Ward.  Lanesha is a bright girl who loves words and wants to be an engineer.  She has a close, loving relationship with Mama Ya-Ya; a supportive teacher at her new middle school; a strong community of neighbors and shopkeepers and even, for the first time, friends her own age (Ginia and TaShon).  I loved this part of the book and wanted it to go on, for Lanesha's sake, even though I knew full well the storm was coming.

When it does, Lanesha must cope with the realization that Mama Ya-Ya, already old, is losing strength as rapidly as the storm is gaining it.  Now Lanesha has to rely on her own fortitude (one of her vocabulary words, meaning "strength to endure") to get herself and TaShon through the storm.

A note about the ghosts:  Mama Ya-Ya, and especially Lanesha, see ghosts throughout the book.  The ghosts are usually in the background, and I almost took their presence for granted (this is New Orleans, after all).  Ninth Ward just doesn't feel like a ghost story or a fantasy novel.  Maybe it's magical realism?

[See the author's website for resources related to Ninth Ward.]

The Saturdays

The French painting of the girl on the garden wall featured in last week's Middle Grade Gallery comes from The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright (first published in 1941; Square Fish, 2008).  The Saturdays is the first, and my favorite, of the books in The Melendy Quartet.  There are four Melendy children, too (guess who is my favorite of them?), and in this book they decide to pool their allowances so each can have an Independent Saturday Afternoon Adventure.

On her Saturday, Randy visits an art gallery where French paintings are being shown for the benefit of war relief.  That's where she finds the painting of The Princess, and its model, who turns out to be old family friend Mrs. Oliphant.  The story behind the painting is long and best told as Mrs. Oliphant told it to Randy, over vanilla ice cream and petit fours.  Suffice it to say that at one point Mrs. Oliphant is kidnapped by gypsies (I agree with Charlotte that this is a bit much).

Elizabeth Enright's own pen-and-ink drawings illustrate all four of the Melendy books.  Here's one from The Saturdays of Randy in front of the painting in question (I scanned this image from my childhood copy).  I'm still wondering whether Enright saw a similar exhibition in New York City and based her description on a real painting, or whether she made up exhibition, painting, or both.  At any rate, we know what it looks like.  Congratulations to Charlotte for recognizing it right away!

The Shadows

The painting of the forest at night featured in last week's Middle Grade Gallery comes from Jacqueline West's debut novel, The Shadows (Volume 1 of The Books of Elsewhere; Dial, 2010).  It's one of several paintings--landscapes, portraits, genre scenes of stonemasons and laughing girls-- in the old house on Linden Street that serve as portals into a mysterious Elsewhere.

Enter Olive Dunwoody, the eleven-year-old daughter of two abstracted math professors who have just bought the house and its contents.  Olive, lonely and left to her own devices most of the time, senses almost immediately that the house is keeping secrets.  With the help of a pair of spectacles, three talking house cats (Horatio, the gigantic orange one, is my favorite) and her own determination to solve the mystery of the paintings and the people in them, she travels into--and out of--Elsewhere.  But if she's not careful, she may get trapped in a painting before she can stop the dark forces who created them...and live in them still.

I absolutely adored this book.  Starting with Olive, who's an extremely likable heroine--shy and awkward, but also imaginative, curious, and brave (lots of bookish girls will recognize themselves in her); her relationships with her parents, who are present if not exactly paying attention; and with Morton, a small annoying boy who's been trapped in a painting for a long time himself.  Plus the cats!

Then there's the house.  Who can resist an old stone Victorian, full of antique furniture and strange knicknacks?  Not I.  It's got an attic heaped with things, too; not to mention an overgrown garden that I hope Olive explores more thoroughly in one of the later books in the series.

Most of all, though, I love the mystery, and the mechanics, of The Shadows.  The paintings aren't just portals between the house and Elsewhere, they are Elsewhere.  The people there are mostly paintings, too--the scenes where Olive realizes this about Morton, and then later when he realizes it about himself, are especially memorable.  [For what this might look like, check out Alexa Meade's acrylics on flesh.]

A note about the book itself:  If I were to write a middle grade fantasy novel, I would want it to be as beautifully made (let alone written) as this one.  Poly Bernatene's black-and-white illustrations are fantastic, a perfect fit for the creepy/comic tone of the text; the endpapers, printed with empty frames, are the exact same shade of blue as the sky on the jacket; there's even a debossed pair of spectacles on the hardcover underneath.  It's all very satisfying.

The Shadows has been compared to Coraline, but really, I liked it even better.  Highly recommended!

[Review copy received from publisher at ALA; thank you so much!]

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Congratulations to Charlotte of Charlotte's Library and Jennifer of Jean Little Library, who correctly identified the source of last month's featured work of art in the Middle Grade Gallery:  The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis.  The rest of you just weren't trying!  It is of course the picture of a Narnian ship at sea that hangs in a back room at Aunt Alberta's (I've always wondered who gave it to her) and becomes a portal into Narnia--or more precisely, into the Narnian sea--for Lucy, Edmund, and their horrible cousin Eustace.  I love this scene in the book and have been very curious about how it will look in the movie (due out December 10); fortunately, it's featured prominently in the trailer.

In the book, the children notice that the things in the picture are moving (Lewis notes that "it didn't look at all like a cinema, either"); then there's wind and noise and a wild, briny smell; finally, "a great, cold salt splash [breaks] right out of the frame." Then the children grow smaller or the picture grows bigger (it's not clear which), and they're all drawn down into the sea.  Here's the trailer for comparison:

What do you think?  Does this scene look as you had imagined it?

The Blue Bird of Happiness Project

I read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (Harper, 2009) during my blog break and immediately set about starting my own Happiness Project.  (Me and everyone else who reads the book, I imagine.)  I'll spare you the details, although it does involve more blogging--which brings me to this post.

At one point during Gretchen's project, she decides to collect bluebirds, because bluebirds are a symbol of happiness.  The connection arises from Maurice Maeterlinck's play The Blue Bird (1908; link is to Project Gutenberg), in which two children--Tytyl and Mytyl--search everywhere for the Blue Bird of Happiness only to find that it was at home all along.

And of course, The Blue Bird is the matinee performed by the students of Madame Fidolia's Academy of Dancing and Stage Training in Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes (1937).  Two scenes from the play are quoted at length in the book; I loved reading these as a child and imagining myself in the roles of Pauline-as-Tytyl and Petrova-as-Mytyl.  I collect books, not bluebirds, but they bring me happiness all the same.

[N.b.  I love the costume notes for The Blue Bird:

TYLTYL wears the dress of Hop o' my Thumb in Perrault's Tales. Scarlet
knickerbockers, pale-blue jacket, white stockings, tan shoes.
MYTYL is dressed like Gretel or Little Red Riding-hood.
LIGHT.--The "moon-coloured" dress in Perrault's _Peau d'âne;_ that is
to say, pale gold shot with silver, shimmering gauzes, forming a sort of
rays, etc. Neo-Grecian or Anglo-Grecian (à la Walter Crane) or even
more or less Empire style: a high waist, bare arms, etc. Head-dress: a sort
of diadem or even a light crown.
THE FAIRY BÉRYLUNE and NEIGHBOUR BERLINGOT.--The traditional dress of the
poor women in fairy-tales. If desired, the transformation of the Fairy into
a princess in Act I may be omitted.
DADDY TYL, MUMMY TYL, GAFFER TYL and GRANNY TYL.--The traditional costume
of the German wood-cutters and peasants in Grimm's Tales.

And many more, all of which I want to make.  Puppet show, anyone?]

Children of Green Knowe

Last week's featured work of art in the Middle Grade Gallery came from L.M. Boston's The Children of Green Knowe (1955; this edition, Harcourt Young Classics, 2002). No one guessed.  I hope this is a reflection of how many people visit books together and not of how many people read Lucy Boston, because the Green Knowe Chronicles are wonderful. Old-fashioned, yes, but in the very best sense of the word. There's an ancient manor house, an almost equally ancient great-grandmother, and the ghosts of the three children in the painting--Toby, Alexander, and Linnet.

The painting of the Oldknow children (which can be glimpsed in the background of Brett Helquist's cover illustration for this edition) is at the center of the second book in the chronicles, Treasure of Green Knowe. It's gone to an exhibition in London and may have to be sold.  Worst of all, its ghosts (but not all of them) have gone with it.  I think I like it even better than the first.

KidsPost Summer Book Club 2010

The tenth annual KidsPost Summer Book Club reading list came out today.  This year, the focus is on new books by "rock star" authors (last year it was nonfiction).  The first three books on the list are Rick Riordan's The Red Pyramid; Ann M. Martin's prequel to The Baby-Sitters Club series, The Summer Before; and Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer by John Grisham.  Not really my kind of list!  But there's probably something on there for everyone, and for me that something might be Chasing Orion by Kathryn Lasky (Candlewick).  KidsPost describes it thusly:  "The author of the "Guardians of Ga'hoole" series writes a story set in Indiana in the 1950s."

Not a particularly compelling description, is it?  Maybe the publisher can do better:  When a beautiful teen with polio enters their lives, a girl and her older brother find themselves drawn into a web of lies.  The polio epidemic?  Why didn't you say so, KidsPost?  It's on the hold list.

11 Birthdays on Groundhog Day 2

I didn't like Groundhog Day (the movie), but I loved 11 Birthdays (the middle grade novel) by Wendy Mass.  They share a similar conceit:  the main characters repeat the same day over and over again.  In the case of Amanda Ellerby, it's her eleventh birthday--the only one she hasn't celebrated with her ex-best friend Leo.  Now she has to figure out how to move on, and she needs Leo's help to do so.  But is Leo experiencing the same day over again, too?  Who's responsible, and why?

It's easy to forget that 11 Birthdays is a fantasy novel (and a Cybils finalist in that category), simply because it's so firmly set in a middle grade world.  Mass revisits that world (and some of its characters) in her latest novel, Finally (Scholastic, 2010).  This one is about Rory Swenson's long-awaited 12th birthday--but the weeks that follow it aren't what Rory wanted them to be.  I wonder if Angelina has anything to do with that?