Bookami

Uncle Bigfoot Written & Illustrated by George O'Connor

Uncle Bigfoot has been a huge hit in my household.  The premise is fairly obvious from the title.  A young boy is reintroduced to his Uncle Bernie, who he hasn't seen since he was an infant.  There aren't any pictures of Uncle Bernie in the house, and when he arrives, the young boy is surprised to find that his uncle is a rather large, hairy man with enormous hands and feet. Could Uncle Bernie be the elusive Bigfoot?  The young boy rules this out, though, when he sees how fun and loving his uncle is. 

Certainly the theme that it's okay to be different is evergreen, but the two boys in my house could have cared less about that.  The first thing my 3-year-old did was step on the cover of the book to see if his foot was as big as the foot on the cover.  We also had to see if his hand was as big as the picture of Uncle Bernie's hand in the middle of the book. My 5-year-old thought the picture of the young boy as a Bigfoot was the best part.  He now thinks he wants to go as Bigfoot for Halloween.  So while I certainly don't condone my children stepping on books, I love how this book immediately captured their attention with it's funny illustrations and straight forward story.  Not to mention, the greenish toenails on the cover supplied the gross factor required of all picture books by my two little monsters.

For another fun read, try O'Connor's Sally and the Some-Thing.

Splat the Cat Written & Illustrated by Rob Scotton

So I totally thought I could never adore a literary animal as much as I liked Russel in Scotton's Russel the Sheep, but today I met Splat, and I think Russel may have to move down a spot on my list.  Splat is a really fat and frizzy black cat, heading off to his first day of cat school. As his tail "wiggled wildly with worry," Splat decides to bring his pet mouse and best friend, Seymour, to school with him.  Well as you can imagine, bringing a mouse to cat school causes all sorts of mayhem.  Luckily, being as small as a mouse, Seymour is able to get the door to the milk cupboard unstuck and save both his and Splat's day. For the second day of school, Splat's tail "wiggled wildly with excitement. "

While the cover for Splat the Cat would have you believe that this is just an ordinary cat and mouse tale, every illustration offers something unexpected and whimsical.  Whether it be the alarm clock pointed to "too early" or Splat's little mouse slippers or the cat with a cheshire grin full of braces, I found that I scanned every page multiple times to make sure I hadn't missed anything.  And don't get me started on how perfectly Splat is drawn in this book.  I had a cat that looked a lot like Splat.  When our family first got her, we called her Memory, but by the time she was a year old, we called her Tubby most of the time.  She weighed 19 pounds and it was all in her stomach.  We often wondered how her skinny little legs could hold her up.  So not only thanks to Scotton for allowing me a sweet recollection of my fabulous fat cat, but also for sending the message to kids that for all our worrying, most things turn out all right in the end.

If you enjoy this picture book, you might also like Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes.

The Fortunes of Indigo Skye by Deb Caletti

Back in late 2004 I had the lovely privilege to be an attendee at the National Book Awards Ceremony.  Deb Caletti's Honey, Baby, Sweetheart was one of the finalists in the Young People's Literature category.  From a sales perspective, I totally wanted Caletti to win.  I knew her book had the most commercial appeal, and 2004 had been a bit of a softer year for YA after the 2003 release of Eragon (hard to comp those sort of sales). Of course, the National Book Award judges don't choose the winners based on commercial appeal, and Pete Hautman's Godless won.  Now that I've read The Fortunes of Indigo Skye, I think I might have been doing Caletti a bit of a disservice.  Yes, it's true that Honey, Baby, Sweetheart had the most commercial appeal, but Caletti is an amazingly detailed and colorful writer.  How did I miss that with Honey, Baby, Sweetheart?  I'm reading Queen of Everything right now, and those perfectly skilled descriptions are there too, and it was her first novel. I should totally have been ranking her at the top of my list with Sarah Dessen, Ellen Hopkins and Julie Anne Peters.  I must have been reading the finalists too quickly, or maybe I just didn't read with the right eye.  Certainly how I read is starting to change with the creation of this site.  When you're a buyer for a category as trend driven as YA, your sales cap must be on 100% of the time.  Not that my job at Borders didn't allow me to step out on various titles, but even then I think I was probably choosing titles with sales in mind.  After all, I wanted my category to perform well.  Now, I'm truly reading for me.   I'm in this place where I can re-read a passage several times and not worry about the other books sitting on the nightstand.  If I don't post for a week, no one's going to yell at me.  There's no author lunch the next day for which I must have read the book.  It's totally freeing.  I'm like a kid in a candy store.  I finally have the time in my life to appreciate the great skill it takes to write a novel, as well as the skill it takes to read one.  Reviewing books isn't as easy as I thought it would be, but when you get to read colorful, mellifluous phrases written by great authors like Caletti, it certainly is rewarding. 

Three Intermediate Novels

So many books so little time would have to be my motto lately.  There are so many books I want to read that as soon as I finish one book, I start to read the next without writing a post.  Shame on me is all I can say, but I do intend to make up for it by writing three reviews for the price of one today.

Smiles to Go by Jerry Spinelli

"Beware of solipsism." What an amazing line for a 10+ intermediate novel.  It does seem to me that at about age 10 is when the selfish phase starts.  That we have this sense of "the self is the only reality." This is certainly what is happening to Will Tuppence.  Will begins his 9th grade year with varied interests.  He's a champ chess player.  He's a decent skateboarder.  He has two really great friends, Mi-Su and BT, and they all play Monopoly every Saturday night.  His way younger sister, Tabby, pesters and worships him simultaneously.  He lives the rationale life of a Physics geek, but then it is discovered that protons actually die.  Nothing will ever be the same in the world of science or in Will's life.  His reality is changing.  For one, BT made it down Dead Man's Hill.  No one has ever been able to do it before, and Will is truly afraid to even try.  Then, he sees BT and Mi-Su kiss at a stargazing party.  Will likes Mi-Su, and what is BT doing kissing her?  As Will becomes obsessed with how to get Mi-Su to like him, he stops playing chess, he can't keep his cool at the weekly Monopoly games, and dealing with his little sister just becomes too much of a pain.  But then Tabby gets hurt, and Will discovers there is more to life than just worrying about a girl.  It's okay that BT kissed her first.  It's okay that he can skateboard down Dead Man's Hill.  Will needs to live in the here and now, and appreciate what he has even if it comes in the form of a 5-year-old little sister.  If the laws of Physics can change, so can Will.

Hummingbird by Kimberly Greene Angle

In the vein of great coming-of-age stories like Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt or The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, first-time novelist Kimberly Greene Angle has given readers a poignant tale about loss from the perspective of a 12-year-old girl.  March Anne Tanner is confused about a few things in her life.  Like what's up with her name?  How can she be named March if she was born in August? Then, there's that chocolate-eyed boy who lives near by.  But one thing March Anne is not confused about is how her life on her Georgia watermelon farm is always the same.  She lives there with her father, trying little brother and her grandmother, Grenna.  Grenna has taken care of most things, domestic and emotional, since March's mother passed away, but now Grenna is sick.  Life is changing for March Anne, and she doesn't think she's ready to handle it, but then a gorgeous scarlet hummingbird freakishly decides to spend Winter on the farm.  Even in Georgia, Winter is not warm enough for a hummingbird to survive.  As the family works together to keep this beautiful creature alive, March Anne realizes that maybe with the help of her family and friends, she too can survive the changes occurring in her life. 

The Crossroads by Chris Grabenstein

Zack Jennings is a fairly average kid.  He's just moved from the city to Connecticut with his Dad and a fabulous new stepmom.  Now he can even have a dog.  It's a chance to start over after the death of his mother, except there is this mean, nasty ghost who has been waiting for fifty years to get revenge on those who played a roll in his death, and the Jennings family happens to be on his list. 

While there is nothing particularly special about this horror novel, I found I enjoyed it much the way I enjoyed the movie, The Frighteners.  That's the one where Michael J. Fox has developed psychic abilities after his wife is killed in a car accident.  The movie is not exactly a comedy, but comedic moments are skillfully thrown in to mitigate any scene being too scary, and Grabenstein has applied this same device to The Crossroads.  Whether it be the over-the-top country-boy accent applied to Zack's friend Davy, the freakish burger cravings of a possessed plumber, or the crazy, dangerous antics of a lady too old to physically hurt a fly, The Crossroads makes for a fun summer read.  Oh, and the best part is that the stepmom and a librarian provide the key clues to solving the mystery of this ghost.  Who says stepmoms are evil and librarians are boring?

Where People Like Us Live by Patricia Cumbie

Libby and her family are always moving.  This time it's to Racine, "Rubberville" Wisconsin, a small factory town on Lake Michigan.  Libby and her older siblings generally don't even bother to make friends anymore, but in her first week in Rubberville, Libby meets Angie.  Libby thinks Angie has it all: lots of clothes, a room she doesn't have to share, a caring stepdad and a devil-may-care attitude.  She can't believe they're both going to be freshman together in the Fall, but soon Libby realizes that Angie's life isn't all it's cracked up to be.  The stepdad isn't as great as she thought, and all of Angie's great clothes are just a way to buy silence.  Should Libby tell someone what she thinks is going on?  Should she tell someone what she saw?  If she does, she may lose the only friend she's really ever had.   Of course, they're probably going to move again anyway so what will it matter?  And that pretty much sums up my problem with this novel.  While Patricia Cumbie certainly knows how to turn a phrase, I found the plot to be as sleepy as the town of Rubberville. It's hard to believe that Libby is really worried that people will think negatively of her and Angie when likely she's going to be gone again in six months. Where People Like Us Live is slow, and Angie's big secret is just too obvious. I also found Libby to be just a bit too naive for a 14-year-old with an older sister and brother.  She even shares a room with her older sister.  While parents may want to view their youngest through rose colored glasses, I've found that generally the baby in the family is the most rebellious and better at hiding it.  Libby just didn't ring true for me.