The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

From amazon.com:

"Are you a gifted child looking for special opportunities?"

When this peculiar ad appears in the newspaper, dozens of children enroll to take a series of mysterious, mind-bending tests. (And you, dear reader, can test your wits right alongside them.) But in the end just four very special children will succeed. Their challenge: to go on a secret mission that only the most intelligent and resourceful children could complete. To accomplish it they will have to go undercover at the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, where the only rule is that there are no rules.

As our heroes face physical and mental trials beyond their wildest imaginations, they have no choice but to turn to each other for support. But with their newfound friendship at stake, will they be able to pass the most important test of all?

Welcome to the Mysterious Benedict Society.

My Review:

Our homeschool book club suggested this one, and because it's a large book a bit daunting for V (her tracking hasn't developed quite enough to be able to read smaller print without fatigue and strain), I grabbed the audiobook from the library.

She.
Was.
Hooked.

And so was I!

Filled to the brim with unforgettable characters and fun surprises, Stewart keeps the story tension high without making it uncomfortably suspenseful for kids--and that is a fine line to walk. I'm really impressed with his storytelling, which merges the zany and intelligent into a wonderful story. We'll definitely continue the series.

North! Or Be Eaten by Andrew Peterson

Janner, Tink, and Leeli Igiby thought they were normal children with normal lives and a normal past. But now they know they’re really the Lost Jewels of Anniera, heirs to a legendary kingdom across the sea, and suddenly everyone wants to kill them.

In order to survive, the Igibys must flee to the safety of the Ice Prairies, where the lizardlike Fangs of Dang cannot follow. First, however, they have to escape the monsters of Glipwood Forest, the thieving Stranders of the East Bend, and the dreaded Fork Factory.

But even more dangerous are the jealousies and bitterness that threaten to tear them apart, and Janner and his siblings must learn the hard way that the love of a family is more important than anything else.


1. All possessing very sharp teeth.
2. Murderous scoundrels, the lot.
3. Woe!

Take the Reins by Jessica Burkhart

Summary: Who says teammates have to be friends?

When Sasha Silver and her horse, Charm, arrive on the campus of the elite Canterwood Crest Academy, Sasha knows that she's in trouble. She's not exactly welcomed with open arms. One group of girls in particular is used to being the best, the brightest, and the prettiest on the team, and when Sasha shows her skills in the arena, the girls' claws come out.

Sasha is determined to prove that she belongs at Canterwood. Will she rise to the occasion and make the advanced riding team by the end of her first semester? Or will the pressure send Sasha packing?

My Review: I spent most of my time growing up with horses. Riding lessons, riding camp, horse-related volunteer work, playing horses, writing horsefic, dreaming up my future stable complex, dreaming about riding college, showing, watching shows, learning dressage terms...yeah. I was never a Pony Clubber -- we didn't have that kind of money -- but I learned everything I could about riding. I read all horsey books and series I could get my hands on: the Thoroughbred series, the Black Stallion books, anything that had Marguerite Henry's name on it (even Brighty! but Stormy was was my favorite), and Bonnie Bryant's The Saddle Club until I outgrew it. But not many of those stories was as real to the riding world as Take the Reins.

No kidding. Burkhart's Canterwood Crest is solid -- from how girls relate to their horses, to the actual riding and safety stuff that's easily integrated into the story. This is exactly the kind of book I'd have liked to read at that age, because it teaches gently and the riding technique is important to the story. It's also very realistic -- I spent so many days from the ages 7 to 17 at barns and with other riders, that I could almost smell sweet feed and hear the old Coke machine running in our admin office!

I'm really happy about this series. Definitely the books I want to have on my shelf to share with all the horse-loving kids I know!

Also, check out the uber-cool Canterwood Crest web site!

Trailer love:

The Year the Swallows Came Early by Kathryn Fitzmaurice

Set in San Capistrano, California, The Year the Swallows Came Early by Kathryn Fitzmaurice tells the story of ten-year-old Groovy, who dreams of going to cooking school. When Groovy's father is arrested, Groovy must find out what he did, who turned him in, and, most importantly, come to grips with his deed.

Woven into Groovy's storyline is that of her best friend, who is trying hard to understand his own parents' failures. By dealing with their problems together, Groovy and Frankie learn that forgiveness is part of growing up.

The Year the Swallows Came Early is another book I'll add to my daughter's must-read list, and I highly recommend it.

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz

Summary: Using a series of interconnected monologues and dialogues featuring young people living in and around an English manor in 1255, she offers first-person character sketches that build upon each other to create a finer understanding of medieval life. The book was inspired by the necessity of creating a play suitable for a classroom where "no one wanted a small part." Each of the 23 characters (between 10 and 15 years old) has a distinct personality and a societal role revealed not by recitation of facts but by revelation of memories, intentions, and attitudes. Sometimes in prose and more often in one of several verse forms, the writing varies nicely from one entry to the next.

Historical notes appear in the vertical margins, and some double-page spreads carry short essays on topics related to individual narratives, such as falconry, the Crusades, and Jews in medieval society. Although often the characters' specific concerns are very much of their time, their outlooks and emotional states will be familiar to young people today. Reminiscent of medieval art, Byrd's lively ink drawings, tinted with watercolors, are a handsome addition to this well-designed book. This unusually fine collection of related monologues and dialogues promises to be a rewarding choice for performance or for reading aloud in the classroom. --Carolyn Phelan

My Thoughts: I listened to the audio version of this book--and it was tremendous! I'm going to be talking about Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! for a very long time, and recommending it to adults as well as middle grade students. I can't say anything about the illustrations, but if they match the scenes, writing, and relevance, I'd likely be raving about them, too.

Definitely a book I'm passing along, even to high schoolers. Love it. Love it lots.

Meg and the Disappearing Diamonds by Holly Beth Walker

My Thoughts: I loved the Meg books when I was ten, so when I came across this at my local Goodwill, I had to snatch it up. A sort of middle grade Nancy Drew, the Meg books deal with small mysteries around a suburb of Washington, DC, called Hidden Springs. I adored these books so much that in fifth grade I created a board game around them. No kidding. So this was simply a pleasure, a blast from my past.

If I can find more of this series, I'm totally snatching them up.

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy by Gary Schmidt

Summary: From the sad and shameful actual destruction of an island community in 1912, Schmidt weaves an evocative novel. When Turner Buckminster arrives in Phippsburg, ME, it takes him only a few hours to start hating his new home. Friendless and feeling the burden of being the new preacher's son, the 13-year-old is miserable until he meets Lizzie Bright Griffin, the first African American he has ever met and a resident of Malaga Island, an impoverished community settled by freed or possibly escaped slaves.

Despite his father's and the town's stern disapproval, Turner spends time with Lizzie, learning the wonders of the Maine coast. For some minor infraction, Turner's father makes the boy visit elderly Mrs. Cobb, reading to her and playing the organ. Lizzie joins him, and this unlikely threesome takes comfort in the music. The racist town elders, trying to attract a lucrative tourist trade, decide to destroy the shacks on Malaga and to remove the community, including 60 graves in their cemetery.

Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME for School Library Journal.

My Review: I have to say, this is the perfect book to read alongside or right after A Northern Light. The main character is a kid you'd want to be friends with, and the story is strong enough to keep you going all the way through. Even though Turner and Lizzie are young (this is a middle grade book), and it's more of a "boy book", I fell into Turner's world easily. The climax and ending are the strongest I've seen from fiction in general--not just middle grade fic, either--in a long time. This is one I'm passing along to my mother-in-law, who teaches English, especially because I liked it more and more as the story progressed.

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

Summary: A king orders a young thief to carry out a near-impossible heist under threat of death. "In addition to its charismatic hero, this story possesses one of the most valuable treasures of all a twinkling jewel of a surprise ending," said Publisher's Weekly of this 1997 Newbery Honor book.

My Review: I'm not big into high fantasy, but Gen's world was easy enough to fall into. I loved the folklore, so much like Greek and Roman mythos, and each member of the cast was three dimensional and easy to believe. My aversions? First, I had no real grasp of Gen's age. For the most part, all of his characteristics could have been those of a teenager or those of a petulant-acting middle aged man (I could see my husband making the smart remarks!). spoiler alert -- you've been warned! I've read a few books this year that have annoyed me because I've felt lied to through at least a portion of the story. This was one of them. A trick that might work in film (the protagonist's surprise) doesn't always translate well into text -- especially when we have to live with a character for a very long time. spoiler over! I'll definitely be reading the sequels, though!

Review: The Chronicles of Narnia Series by C.S. Lewis

I hadn't read these since I was, oh, eleven? Maybe younger? So I tackled them again, and flew through 'em.

I love how Jack (Lewis) can write something as whoa as Mere Christianity, then something as huh as The Screwtape Letters and also write something as yeah! as the Chronicles. Let's not forget the mm-hmm of Out of the Silent Planet and...

Well, yeah. You get the point.

Still love these books. I remembered loving The Last Battle the best, but Voyage had the Very Best Opening Ever (TM):

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it..."

Magician's Nephew is still Very Cool, but I think I might like The Horse and His Boy the most. Oh, and The Silver Chair can still creep me out.

Review: Inkspell by Cornelia Funke

So, like, everything a kids’ book should be? It’s this one. Wowza, I’ve read some good fiction this year.
I read Inkheart last year, and it was cool enough, but it wasn’t the best book since Harry Potter or anything. Cynthia said I needed to read this one, and wowza! I loved this book! It’s 635 pages packed with fantasty realism. Some people (lit purists) would have a lot of stupid bones to pick with Ms. Funke, I’m sure, what with all the passive tense (not nearly as bad as Jo Rowling’s, though), and all the focus put on characters that should be minor. But that’s what I love about it: no character is minor. In fact, that’s one of the points of the book.

Jack and I love books that explore the world and people in it. It’s one of those things I disagree with the most in the pro writing world–the streamline, cut-cut-cut, edit-edit-edit, action-action-action crap. I’ll do it if an agent or editor tells me to, but you gotta know I’m not throwing those scenes away. Nope, they’re in my back pocket.

Also why I like spinoffs and series.

Anyway, this book is amazing, and I love it, and my kids will be reading it even though there’s foul language in it. I’m only mad because I have to wait until fall 2008 for the next in the trilogy.

Review: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konisburg

Review: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

I wish I’d read this when I was a kid.

Other than a heroine that I adore (Claudia is so cool) and an awesome little bro in Jamie, and New York City!, it’s entirely engaging.

I don’t know what’s more noteworthy: the narration style or the little bits of wisdom and truth Konigsburg interjects every so often in the most subtle of places. The only other story of hers I’ve read was The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place, which I really liked because of its intelligent young protagonist (what’s not to love about a kid who quotes Melville’s Bartleby?) and the story’s simplicity and credibility. While Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is an entirely different story, it continues all I loved about Schuyler Place. Verity will most definitely be reading this one sooner rather than later!

Review: Dave at Night by Gail Carson Levine

This is the second Gail Carson Levine I’ve read (the first was Ella Enchanted which is lovely and great and way better than that dumb movie), and let me just say that she doesn’t let down on the endings. They’re never complex, they’re never hard to grasp, but they’re simple and perfect and plausible.

Her portrait of 1920s New York was about as accurate as I could require, and filled with the sepia settings of theJewish poor and the glitter of the rich and black. Having read The King of Mulberry Street in the past month, too, I found familiarity, even though the stories are entirely different. Neither of the books really seemed to move, even though they were both well-written and technically good; maybe that’s what people expect when they pick up an historical. I, for one, don’t.

I loved the cameos by Langston Hughes and W. E. B. DuBois, and the glimpses into black Harlem were great. I’ll be searching out a new “type” of book now, one that gives me more insight into that time and place.

Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling

Don’t worry, I read this at the same time as about 20% of the world’s population read it. But since I’ve read all the others at least twice, I thought I’d give HBP another go, too.

I LOVE THIS STORY!

Order of the Phoenix remains my favorite, and Prisoner of Azkaban my second favorite (probably because of all the Maurader-y goodness, yum all over young Sirius, y’knowwhatImean?), but wow. This is the one that gets better as it goes along. And there’s that one spot, that one particular spot where we watch Harry turn into a man.

Le. Sigh.

I could prattle about this one for hours. And now, thank you sooo much, Jo, I’m stuck waiting until whenever you’re done with your manuscript.

I have to know what happens.

Review: The King of Mulberry Street by Donna Jo Napoli

Packed cover to cover with historical fact, The King of Mulberry Street should be required reading for anyone studying 1890s New York City. Nine-year-old Beniamino, or “Dom”, is a Jewish boy from Napoli. That’s right, an Italian Jew. Equipped with only a pair of new shoes, his grandmother’s proverbs, a spaghetti recipe and a love for (kosher) food, Dom is smuggled into a ship bound for America.

His mother gave him one job, one simple, not-so-easy job: Survive. And so he goes about learning the Neopolitan American way of padrones and begging and avoiding trouble. The story is strong, and the reader roots for this kid all the way through. The characters are believable, too. In fact, my only gripe about the story is the prose. So much is presented in cold fact and logic, and since the novel is written in first person I have a hard time reconciling it with what I remember being a nine-year-old.

But then again I was a privileged kid growing up in the selfish 80s. I didn’t have to worry about who would beat me up if I walked down the wrong street, and I didn’t have to bathe in a park pond or sleep in a barrel.

Overall, great book, very interesting, extremely educational, and I do recommend it for anyone interested in that time period or New York’s history.