Middle-Grade Review: The One and Only Ivan

Katherine Applegate won a Newberry Medal for her middle-grade novel The One and Only Ivan, and the award was well deserved. I just listened to it on audio and was completely taken in by this unique story narrated by a gorilla.

 

Yes, Ivan is a gorilla, and he tells his story. When I first realized this at the start of the audio, I worried it would be kind of gimmicky and silly, but nothing could be further from the truth. Ivan lives at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, in a small glass enclosure. Stella, an elderly elephant, and Bob, a stray dog, are friends of Ivan’s who also live at the Mall. Stella performs in daily shows, and Ivan is known for his drawings that sell in the gift shop for $30 each ($40 framed).

The animals have some human friends, too, including George, who cleans up around the mall, and his kind daughter, Julia. Things change for all the residents of the Big Top Mall when Mac, the owner, brings in a new baby elephant, in an effort to lift sagging profits. Little Ruby misses her family but is welcomed by Stella, Ivan, and Bob. After Ruby arrives, though, Ivan begins to realize that things need to change – and hopefully, for the better – so he comes up with a crazy plan that just might work.

Far from being silly, these animals who can talk among themselves stir deep emotions – joy and sorrow, horror and happiness. The book is recommended for ages 8 and up, but parents should consider whether their child is emotionally mature enough for the serious issues it raises including wild animals being taken into captivity (and worse) and mistreatment of animals. I won’t give away specific plot points, but one character does die in the book, and there is one passage of poachers killing and capturing gorillas. Parents may want to read the book aloud to younger kids, so they can talk about what’s happening. I think it depends on the child. I have an 11-year old niece who cried inconsolably every single time she watched Spirit (which has some tense moments but a happy ending) – I wouldn’t recommend this book to her!

For most kids, though – and grown-ups, too – there is a big pay-off for getting through the sad stuff, and the story does have a happy ending. Think in terms of Charlotte’s Web or Babe, both in terms of tone and quality. This is a book with plenty of heart plus a sense of humor. Interestingly, Applegate was inspired to write this novel based on a true story of a gorilla known as Ivan, the Shopping Mall Gorilla. She has crafted a moving story of friendship and determination, with unusual emotional depth for a middle-grade novel. Definitely a winner.

HarperAudio

P.S. I loved listening to the audio - the narrator does Ivan's voice perfectly - and it would be perfect for a family road trip. The book also has some advantages, though, including a few illustrations and short chapters perfect for middle-grade readers.

Visit Katherine Applegate's website, including more information on the real Ivan.

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

Teen/YA Review: Stolen

 Stolen by Lucy Christopher won a Printz Honor award in 2011, and it’s easy to see why. This unique novel about the relationship between a kidnapper and his captive has great emotional depth and explores the gray areas of what is usually considered a straightforward issue.

Gemma, a teen traveling with her parents, is kidnapped from the airport by a young man named Ty. Before he drugs her and takes her away, Gemma is attracted to the handsome man with the blue eyes who buys her a coffee, but when she wakes up in unfamiliar surroundings, all she feels is fear.

The novel is told as a letter from Gemma to Ty about her experiences, starting from the moment she saw him in the airport. You would think that her story would be horrifying and terrifying, but it’s far more complicated than that. Ty treats her with kindness, and the two of them are alone, in the definitive “middle of nowhere,” with no one to rely on but each other. She must trust him to some degree, as she is relying on him for her survival in this dangerous and remote – yet beautiful – place.

I won’t say any more about the plot because part of this book’s attraction is its suspense and surprises. The novel is well written and wholly unique. I have read several other teen/YA novels about abductions, and while they were engrossing, this one takes a different approach and explores a far more complicated relationship than just captor and captive. In fact, there are times when you find yourself actually rooting for Ty, even though you know what he did was horribly wrong. I love thought-provoking books that explore the gray areas of life, and this one fits the bill. Stolen is both tender and terrifying, showing that there is almost always more to a situation than meets the eye.

299 pages, Scholastic

 

Middle-Grade Review: Young Fredle

It is easy to understand why Young Fredle by Cynthia Voight was named an Odyssey Honor Book for Excellence in Audiobook Production.  It is a warm, wonderful story, performed by a talented actress.  Though it is aimed squarely at middle-graders, it is so well done that parents will love it, too, making it perfect for family road trips!

The main character, Fredle, is a mouse, a house mouse to be more precise.  He lives behind the pantry walls in Mr. And Mrs.’s farmhouse with his large mouse family.  They live a quiet life, sleeping in communal nests during the day and cautiously foraging for food in the dark kitchen at night, though Fredle wishes he were braver, like his cousin Axle, and wonders what’s outside the world of the kitchen.  One night, Fredle and Axle find something strange and wonderful (a Peppermint Pattie!) on a top pantry shelf, and Fredle finds himself in a situation that requires all of his courage.

One thing leads to another, and Fredle ends up outside, alone for the first time in his young life.  He encounters all kinds of exciting new experiences but also many dangers – things he’s never even heard of like snakes and owls and raccoons.  Fredle is immersed in new things he doesn’t even know the name for, until a young mouse from a family of field mice befriends him and teaches him about things like grass and flowers and stars.  Fredle gets all the adventures he ever wanted and also has a chance to consider what home really means.

I know this sounds like a strange way to describe a novel about a mouse, but it really is a coming-of-age story.  While Fredle is out among friends and enemies of the outdoor world, he grows up.  He thinks about what is really important to him and makes some life-changing decisions that affect him as well as other mice.

Though a story told from a mouse’s perspective might get a bit gimmicky with a lesser writer, Voight’s story of Fredle is told with warmth and sincerity, full of gentle humor and plenty of mouse-sized adventure.  Actress Wendy Carter reads the novel with considerable talent, bringing us into Fredle’s world and adeptly managing the different voices of all the creatures he meets (though I’m not entirely sure why raccoons speak with a Jersey accent, but they sure were amusing!).  All in all, Young Fredle deserved its award and is perfect for families to listen to together.  And as much as I loved the audio production, it looks like the paper book has adorable illustrations, so either format is a winner!

Listening Library

Recommended for Ages 8 and up.

P.S. Oddly enough, I had never even heard of Cynthia Voight until earlier this year, when I read her Newberry Medal-winning novel Dicey’s Song, which I also loved!

Listen to an excerpt: 

 

AUDIO:            BOOK:    

Middle-Grade/Teen Review: Dicey’s Song

Apparently, the Tillerman series by Cynthia Voight is quite well known and has been enjoyed by generations of young (and not so young) girls.  I knew none of that, only that the second book in the series, Dicey’s Song, had won the Newberry Medal and that the series had been recently re-released by Simon & Schuster’s Atheneum imprint.  So I read this warm and tender novel with few expectations and was pleasantly surprised.

In the first book of the series, Homecoming, the four Tillerman children are abandoned by their mother, who is lost in her own misery, so they set off from Rhode Island and make their way all the way to Maryland, to a grandmother they’d never met.  It didn’t matter that I hadn’t read the first book; the relevant details are woven into this story seamlessly.  Twelve-year old Dicey is the oldest of the four children and has gotten used to being responsible for…well, for everything.  So, though they are all happy to be living with Gram, it is a big adjustment for Dicey to go back to being a kid and to share the heavy load of her responsibilities with someone else.

The novel begins the day before school starts, so all four children have a lot of new things to adjust to – new school, new classmates, and new challenges.  Things are difficult at first; each of them has his or her own problems that they must work together as a family to solve.  Besides all this newness, Dicey is facing the additional changes of growing up and entering adolescence.

I really loved this gentle, well-written story with surprising emotional depth for a teen novel. I think this novel will appeal to older middle-grade readers as well (not to mention adults like me!).  Though it seems set slightly in the past, the issues and challenges that the children face are relevant to today’s kids.  I am looking forward to reading more about the Tillerman’s.

247 pages, Atheneum

 

ALA Announces Award Winners!

This week, the American Library Association (ALA) announced the latest winners of the Youth Media Awards, including such well-respected awards as the Caldecott Medal, the Newberry Medal, Coretta Scott King Award and more.  It's an impressive list of books, audio books, and videos from picture books to Young Adult novels.

Of all of these prestigious award-winners, I have only read one of them: Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick (which I happen to be reading right now!) which won the Schneider Family Book Award for "artistic expression of the disability experience."

Looks like I need to get busy!

Picture Book Review: The Hundred Dresses

I was surprised to find out that my library’s selection for the November book discussion was a classic picture book, The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes.  I wasn’t there when they chose the book, and, as it turned out, I wasn’t able to make it to the discussion this week, so I’m not sure what was behind the choice.  But I did read the book, for the first time ever, and enjoyed it.

Just in case you are as clueless as I was and have never read this well-known 1945 Newberry Honor winner, it is basically a warm and timeless story about bullying.  Wanda Petronski is different from her classmates.  She has an odd name, she lives far from town in a small house out in the country, and she wears the same worn, blue dress to school every day.  Another girl, Peggy, teases Wanda every day, asking her how many dresses she has at home, and every day, Wanda answers by saying she has a hundred dresses at home, beautiful dresses in all colors.

Peggy’s best friend, Maddie, goes along with this daily routine, but inside, she feels uncomfortable about it because her family doesn’t have much more money than Wanda’s.  One day, Wanda doesn’t come to school, and her classmates find out her family has moved to a larger city where they won’t be seen as different.  Maddie is gripped with guilt, and even Peggy wonders if maybe she shouldn’t have teased Wanda.  The girls write to Wanda and eventually come to understand exactly what the hundred dresses meant to her.

It’s a warm, tender story with a very important lesson.  Although the 1940’s book is a bit dated in some minor ways (like all the girls wearing dresses to school!), it is surprisingly relevant today.  In fact, bullying is a hot topic for both parents and kids right now, and this gentle story presents an ethical dilemma just as pertinent to today’s kids: Are you just as accountable for the consequences of bullying as the kid doing the bullying if you stand by and say nothing?   This book is as appropriate and enjoyable for modern elementary-aged kids as it was over 50 years ago.

80 pages, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

 

Children's Book Choice Awards Winners Announced

At a big event Monday night, the 4th annual Children's Book Choice Awards were presented.  Why is this awards show news-worthy?  Because kids themselves choose the winners!

Here are the major category winners:

Kindergarten to second grade: Little Pink Pup by Johanna Kerby (Putnam)

 

Third to fourth grade: Lunch Lady and the Summer Camp Shakedown by Jarrett J. Krosoczka (Knopf)

 

Fifth to sixth grade: The Red Pyramid (The Kane Chronicles: Book 1) by Rick Riordan (Disney-Hyperion)

 

Teen: Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan (Dutton)

 

In addition, David Wiesner was named Illustrator of the Year and Rick Riordan was named Author of the Year.   This is a big honor for Riordan, who just 5 years ago was a middle-school teacher stunned by the success of The Lightning Thief back in 2006 when I corresponded with him after reviewing his first book for Family Fun magazine (don't you just love stories like that in the writing world?)

Check out this article at Publisher's Weekly for all the details, plus photos from the awards ceremony.

Have you read any of the winners?  Do you agree with the kids' choices?  Who would be your choice for Author of the Year?

Versatile Blogger Award!

Lovely Anne, a high school librarian and writer of the blog, My Head Is Full of Books, awarded me The Versatile Blogger Award last week!  Thank you, Anne - I very much appreciate the award!  Please stop by and visit her wonderful blog with lots of great book reviews for teens, YA, and grown-ups, too (hence her own versatility!).

Here are the rules for this award:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic for whatever reason! (In no particular order...)
4. Contact the bloggers you've picked and let them know about the award.

(Note: As many of you know, I have a chronic illness and have limited energy/time for blogging, so I'm only going to pass this along to 5 other bloggers.  If I don't limit myself a bit, I wouldn't be able to accept awards at all, so I hope you understand.)

Now, 7 things about myself.  Since this is a kids/teens book blog, I'll try to focus on those areas of my life:

1. My Mom taught me to read before I started kindergarten (thanks, Mom!) - Go, Dog, Go! by P.D. Eastman was the first book I read on my own, and it is still a favorite of mine and my own kids.  There is an awesome photo of me reading The Cat In the Hat while sitting on my potty seat (obviously, even earlier) - I wish I could share that with you, but I think my Mom has it.  Suffice it to say, I have always loved books!
2. I was a huge fan of both Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden when I was a kid.  A friend and I used to pretend to be Trixie and Honey, but we could never find any good mysteries in our neighborhood.
3. My all-time favorite series as a kid was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle and its sequels.  I even got to play Meg in our 3rd grade play!
4. I went on a Ray Bradbury binge in high school and read every single Bradbury book in our public library.  Oddly, I haven't read any Bradbury since then.  I really want to revisit his books.
5. Besides Bradbury, as a teen I began to read more and more books from the adult section of the library, though I still liked some teen books.  There really wasn't as much YA variety back then as there is now.  My Mom, Dad, and I read every single Stephen King book that came out - we just passed them between the three of us.
6. I joined a book group about 7 years ago with a group of friends and was stunned by the wonderful variety of books we read!  I rediscovered reading at that point in many ways.  That group disbanded, but I now belong to two other book groups - one in my neighborhood and another at a local Unitarian church (but it's not a religious book group - just regular books) and I sometimes attend a third at my local library if I can squeeze it in.  Book groups have introduced me to so many genres of books that I never would have tried otherwise!
7. I'm a freelance writer, and in addition to my book blog, I write reviews of books and other media for Family Fun magazine.  Lots of fun and my kids love being testers!

Now, I'd like to pass this award onto the following well-deserved and versatile blogs (no one said they had to be book blogs, so I've included a variety here):

• Stephanie at Curling Up By the Fire (books)
• Jan at Eating YA Books (books)
• Dalia at Generation X Mom (Dalia posts wonderfully thought-provoking issues and questions about parenting)
• Julie at My Book Retreat (books)
• Peryl at Parenting Ad Absurdum (Peryl writes hilarious and heartwarming posts about being a parent)

So, please stop by and visit these very worthy blogs.
(And awardees:  no pressure if you can't meet all the requirements listed above!  Feel free to just bask in the glory of accepting an award.)

Help Craig Choose a Book!

Craig, my 12-year old son, has a reading assignment for school this summer, in preparation for 7th grade.  He has to read two books:  Sounder, which he just finished, plus one other of his own choosing from a list.  The problem is that of the 13 book on the list, I've only heard of one of them before.

So, we're asking for your help!  Craig generally enjoys fast-paced books with action, adventure, and/or humor.  Some of his favorites are The Hardy Boys, the Charlie Bone series, A Wrinkle in Time, and Bruce Coville's Unicorn Chronicles and Aliens series.  So, please let us know if you'd recommend any of the books on this list - thanks!

1. Banner in the Sky by James Ramsey Ullman (1955 Newberry Honor award - about a boy climbing the Matterhorn)
2. Brian's Song screenplay by William Blinn
3. Gifted Hands: the Ben Carson Story by Ben Carson (autobiography of inner city kid who becomes a top neurosurgeon)
4. Let the Circle Be Unbroken by Mildred D. Taylor (in 1935, a black man is tried for murder by an all-white jury)
5. The Lottery Rose by Irene Hunt (an abused boy slowly begins to heal at a home for boys)
6. Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse (1998 Newberry medal winner set in Depression-era Oklahoma dust bowl)
7. Scorpions by Walter Dean Myers (1988 Newberry winner about a boy who's pressured to join a gang)
8. Somewhere in the Darkness by Walter Dean Myers (convict father takes teen son on the run with him)
9. Thank You, Jackie Robinson by Barbara Cohen (interracial friendship between a boy and a man joined by a love of baseball)
10. Time of the Cay by Theodore Taylor (follow-up to The Cay, about a white boy stranded on a desert island and the black man who saves him)
11. Titanic Crossing by Barbara Williams (story of 13-year old boy on the Titanic - mixed reviews)
12. The View From Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg (1996 Newberry winner about a 6th grade academic bowl team)
13. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (a Newberry winner  - mystery about 16 people in a strange game having to do with a strange will)

Wow - lots of Newberry winners there!  Also, lots of historical novels and African-American characters - I'm guessing they'll be studying American history this year!  I also noticed lots of sad stories  - I saw the phrase "gut-wrenching" more than once as I looked these up.  Craig doesn't love sad books; he said the ending of Sounder was really tough!  At first glance, it looks like he might like The Westing Game.

So what do you think?  Which book would you choose?

Teen/YA Review: What I Saw and How I Lied

I read What I Saw and How I Lied, a recent paperback release by Judy Blundell, while stuck for hours on a delayed flight.  It provided a welcome and worthy distraction!  This wonderful teen/YA novel won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature in 2008.  It’s an intriguing mix of historical fiction, a touching coming-of-age story, mystery, and even a bit of romance.

In 1947 New York, Evie is fifteen and feeling in that peculiar limbo between childhood and adulthood.  Here, she and her friend Margie practice smoking with chocolate cigarettes:

Margie held her candy cigarette high in the air, even though ladies don’t smoke on the street.  We couldn’t imagine being wicked enough to smoke on the street, but it was something to shoot for, something that smacked of high heels and saying “damn” if you broke a nail.  In the meantime, we were careful not to step on any cracks in the sidewalk.  Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.  We’d been saying it since we were nine years old, and it was just like Holy Communion.  We believed in it absolutely, no matter how screwball it sounded.

The author does a great job of capturing the sense of innocence and excitement of both the age and the time period.  The war has ended, and husbands, fathers, and brothers are returning home.  Evie’s stepfather has come home to her and her mother, but he seems different in some hard-to-describe way.   Peter, a young, handsome man from his company, shows up, and Evie begins to fall in love.  When tragedy strikes, Evie’s world begins to unravel and she no longer knows what – or who – to believe…and neither does the reader.

This suspenseful mystery kept me turning the pages, as I came to care about Evie and lament the loss of her little-girl innocence.  It’s a wonderful novel for both teens and grown-ups.

281 pages, Scholastic

Vote for Your Favorite Books!

Voting is now open for the 2010 Children's Choice Book Awards!

Just use this link to vote for your favorite books - choose age categories K-2, 3-4, 5-6, and teens and cast your vote for your favorite book, favorite author, and favorite illustrator.

Kids' Book Awards

There was some interesting news this week about two different book awards for kids' books.

The Children's Book Council announced its finalists for the Children's Choice Book Awards, in categories from kindergarten through teen. One of my favorites made the teen list: Catching Fire, the sequel to The Hunger Games - easily my favorite teen/YA books from last year (I read both in 2009). Their author, Suzanne Collins, was also nominated for Author of the Year. Check out the full lists at the CBC website, and vote for your favorites starting on March 15.

The UK's Booktrust announced its winners of the coveted Blue Peter Book Awards. The winner for Best Book I Couldn't Put Down as well as Blue Peter Book of the Year was Frozen in Time by Ali Sparkes, an exciting adventure of two cryogenically frozen kids from 1950 who are brought back to life in 2009. Sounds like a great plot, doesn't it? Frozen in Time will be available in the US on May 25, 2010. I can't wait!