The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly

First of all, I have to say that I really, really hope Jacqueline Kelly writes another book about Calpurnia Tate, because I don’t think her story is yet finished.  It is 1899, and Calpurnia Tate is 11 ¾ and not your typical turn-of-the-century girl.  Calpurnia Tate is spunky and would much rather spend her time outside finding bugs and plants with her grandfather than inside learning how to sew a straight seam, cook, and do other domestic activities.  Give her credit for trying though!  She does at least attempt all of these things, with mixed results (but it makes Mother happy).  It’s a time of scientific progress and around the time that the theory of evolution is just gaining ground, and Calpurnia wants to be a part of that.  Calpurnia also narrates the story and, like Jerusha Abbott in Daddy-Long-Legs, is very witty and has a great sense of humor.  If a book makes me laugh aloud, and this one did, I usually determine it to be a good read.   Calpurnia reminds me of such favorite characters of mine as Amber Brown, Ramona, Clementine, and Scout.  This is an excellent story for ages 10 and up, and parents should enjoy it, too!

Daddy-Long-Legs, by Jean Webster

Daddy-Long-Legs is an epistolary novel (a novel told in letters or diary entries) that takes place in the early part of the 20^th century.  Now Amazon has posted a School Library Journal summary that suggests this book is for 9^th grade and up, but I disagree.  I think a 10- or an 11-year old could read it, and in fact, I have met 10- and 11-year olds that have read it.  Jerusha Abbott has a mysterious benefactor who pays for her college education, on the condition that he remains anonymous and that Jerusha write him once a month to tell him of her progress.  Since Jerusha is quite sure she saw the back of him as he left the orphanage where she grew up, she decides to nickname him Daddy-Long-Legs.  Jerusha is a spunky, intelligent girl who has a sharp sense of humor and displays wisdom beyond her years, and I absolutely loved this book.  It is an especially good read for girls and young women.  It is lighthearted but at the same time thought-provoking.

Bunheads, by Sophie Flack

This was a pretty good read about a young ballerina who wishes to rise in her company.  At the same time, she is starting to question all the time and effort she puts in, and the fact that her life truly is not her own, but given over to the dance.  As such, I have it on good word from a friend of mine who used to be a professional ballerina that this is probably not the best book to give a girl or guy who is actually a ballet dancer, or a former one.  After she looked at it, she determined that it was “too close to the real thing”.  SO, I think it is safe to say that this is a good book for those of us who love and/or would like to learn about the life offstage.  It gave me a very healthy appreciation for what these artists give of themselves in order to perfect their craft and create the magic of such favorites of mine as “Swan Lake” and “The Nutcracker”.  I suggest 15 and up as the best age at which to read this book, since the main character does deal with or encounter certain situations (e.g. eating disorders and sexuality).  

A Plethora of Good Teen Reads, Plus Some Other Ones

Following will be some brief reviews of several Young Adult books I read in the last six to eight months.  The reason they never made it to this blog is because I was busy graduating from college and taking my CPA exams (both objectives of which were successfully accomplished, hence the increased blogging time!).  I think these books are worth mentioning because they are good reads for the general 14 and up reading audience, with a few 10- and 12-up exceptions.  Find them at your local independent bookstore or your local library!

The Enchanted Wood, by Enid Blyton

This is the first Enid Blyton book I have read, and I received this book as a gift from a very special friend of mine.  Given these facts, I will alert you to the more-likely-than-not probability that this book is not available in the United States.  You may be able to find it at the library, but you will most likely have to get The Enchanted Wood from Canada, India, or the United Kingdom (try their respective Amazon sites, or better yet, try Alibris and Abebooks online, both of which specialize in rare, hard-to-find books).  

Remember those classic books you read as a child, like Half Magic, Mary Poppins, and Gone-Away Lake?   This book reminds me of all of those and brought me back to those days of reading truly delightful and innocent stories by the bundle.  Joe, Beth, and Frannie have moved to the country with their parents.  It is summertime and they spend their days doing their house chores and exploring the surrounding countryside.  There they discover the Enchanted Wood, the Faraway Tree, and the folk that live there.  The Faraway Tree is especially exciting because every week or so, if you climb all the way to the top, a different land is there above the clouds (e.g. Birthday Land and the Land of Take-What-You-Want, among other whimsically named lands straight out of my childhood daydreams).  If you know a child (or an adult!) who wants to read a fantasy where nothing scary happens and everything is wonderfully magical, I sincerely recommend Enid Blyton.  As far as I know, a fraction of Blyton’s books are available in the United States, and I usually find them in independent or used bookstores.  As I mentioned before, though, consumers can acquire them via online means (also try independent bookstores’ online storefronts).

The Scorpio Races, by Maggie Stiefvater

This book is excellent.  I really liked Stiefvater’s Shiver trilogy, which was more like a darker werewolf beach read (as opposed to a lighter werewolf beach read; I mean exactly what I say), but I loved The Scorpio Races.  It is a fantasy, but unique from many other fantasies I have read over the last few years.  

The Scorpio Races takes place in this world, sometime before 1950, possibly between the World Wars, maybe before both of them.  It takes place on a small island off the coast of the United Kingdom: most likely Ireland, since Kate Connolly and Sean Kendrick are the names of the main characters.  Every year in October, the water horses start coming out of the ocean.  Those who are inclined catch and train these horses in time for the Scorpio Races in November, which draw tourists from several parts of the world.  Water horses look like regular land horses, but they are violent and carnivorous.  They will kill man and beast alike if hungry and left to their own devices.  Sean Kendrick is a four-time winner of the Scorpio Races and something of a water horse whisperer.  He works for one of the most wealthy and powerful men on the island, and wants his freedom.  Kate Connolly lives with her two brothers in their dead parents’ house, and enters the Scorpio Races with a mind to win them herself and so avoid eviction of her family.  She is the first girl to enter the Scorpio Races in the history of the island.  Both Sean and Kate embark on unforgettable journeys that cross paths with each other; they learn, among other things, what it is to love this harsh island that is their home and how to make firm decisions about their lives so that they can continue to live there.  It’s a beautifully written story and I highly recommend it; it’s really for readers 13 and older, though a mature 12-year-old could probably read it (there are some graphic depictions of the carnage instigated and left behind by the water horses).  If this book had come out when I was 12, I probably would have read it; then again, I read a lot of things at age 12 that were far advanced in writing style and content.  In any case, The Scorpio Races is a great read.

Flush, by Carl Hiaasen

I loved Hiaasen’s Hoot when I read it several years ago, and I recommend it just as much as Flush (which is not a sequel to Hoot).  Adults may be familiar with his earlier mysteries, but Hiaasen has since branched into children’s literature.  

Flush is the story of a family and how they deal with the father’s well-meaning but legally questionable attempts to make things right where they are wrong.  We meet Noah at the beginning as he is waiting to meet his father in a visitor’s room…at the local jail.  This is not an unusual occurrence, but this is the first time it is for a more weighty reason: Noah’s father has sunken a casino boat because he believes that the owner is dumping sewage into a protected area of the Florida Keys.  Unfortunately, he does not have substantial evidence that this is the case.  Noah’s father is a strong believer in doing the right thing, but he doesn’t always like to do things by the book.  It is more efficient, after all, to do things himself rather than try and get the law involved.  Noah and his sister become involved in helping prove their dad correct and have enough adventurous experiences and humorous interludes to fill a book (pun intended!).  Along the way, they learn a lot about how there are many different ways of doing the right thing and they don’t all have to end in an orange jumpsuit.  

I loved reading Flush; it’s great for kids 10 and up.  Adults may enjoy it too, and if you’re a Carl Hiaasen fan don’t hesitate to read his books for young readers!  There’s nothing wrong with grown-ups reading kids’ books: I do it every day, and meet many other adults and parents who also do so.  A good story is a good story, is what I always say.

The Book of Blood and Shadow, by Robin Wasserman

Warning: If you don't want to read a long negative book review, well, this is that.  However, if you want to find out why I don't think this book is very good, you should check my review out.  

Here’s the thing about this book: after reading it, I can gauge what reading audience will probably enjoy it.  I was looking forward to reading it because I had not read a mystery á la The Da Vinci Code in a while and the premise seemed interesting. 

It ended up being one of the worst books I read this year.  It was very disappointing; and yes, I read the whole book.  I got invested in it enough that I decided to power through and read to the end.

There are several problems with the story and the characters, and they are interrelated.  I will focus on what I think are the major ones.  From the beginning, it is established that Nora, the main character, is a high school senior and accomplished Latin translator who lives with her parents, neither of whom seem to take a significant interest in her upbringing, due mainly to the death of her older brother several years earlier.  She is a part-time volunteer research assistant at the nearby university along with one of her best friends and her boyfriend.  Her other best friend is also a high school senior.  Unfortunately, these characters were portrayed so one-dimensionally that I didn’t really get a sense of them as people; they seemed more like props to keep the story and the mystery going.  When the author did attempt to infuse some life into the characters, it felt awkward and confusing.  I did not see why I should care about any of the characters and what they were doing.  Even though one of them is murdered (this is not quite a spoiler, since Nora mentions it within the first few chapters), I got the impression that Nora was more concerned about mitigating her own implied guilt in the event rather than genuine anger and sadness about the death.  It is hard to tell what everyone’s motivations are, and nobody grows or undergoes some other kind of transformation by the end of the story.

The way the characters are able to follow the clues, so to speak, to unravel the mystery, is also unclear.  Though everyone is supposed to be really smart and knowledgeable about different languages and cultures and history, I was not convinced of it, mainly because the characters were already poorly drawn and not well developed.  It does not always make sense how the characters arrive at their conclusions and so neatly go from place to place and always find a document or a message or a key person essential to the mystery. 

Finally, there are a few significant “reveals” toward the end of the book that do not make sense in the context of this story because the author does not establish at the beginning that these kinds of events could happen in this world or that yes, there is a more than 90% possibility that these characters might actually be more than they say they are.  These “reveals” are written too hastily.  I literally groaned aloud at Starbucks (my boyfriend gave me a sympathetic look; he understands because sometimes he has to watch bad movies in order to see why good movies are so good).   

Here is why I think Twilight is a better book (and we’re not talking about writing quality; it’s strictly style and content): 1) Though Bella and Nora are both self-pitying and can be very insufferable, Bella is more fleshed out and believable as a character within a story and not as a device to move the story forward; 2) people and events within the Twilight universe make sense in the context of the universe because Stephenie Meyer establishes that these people could exist and these events could occur within this universe; and 3) Meyer constructs and paces the story consistently and logically.  True, I would go cross-eyed at Bella’s pages and pages of Edward-longing, but at least it made sense for her character.  Parts of Blood and Shadow are plain boring and unnecessary.  The author’s writing style is meandering: it seems as if the author is still trying to figure out what her writing style is by the end of the book. 

All in all, The Book of Blood and Shadow consists of a lot of pages that tell a story of not much.  I will not stop you from reading it if your curiosity wins out.  To be perfectly honest, though, there are better books out there. 

Human Body: A Book with Guts! By Dan Green; illustrated by Basher

I love Basher’s illustrations, and I think it is great that he illustrates children’s introductory science books.  I recently read this to get a brush-up on my knowledge of the human body.  I quite enjoyed it.  Each chapter builds on ideas and concepts introduced in previous chapters, and rather than organizing each chapter by organ system, it starts with the basic building blocks of life (cells and other microscopic organisms) and progresses to grouping systems that work together in subsequent chapters.  It is a fun read for kids because each organism “narrates” its own story of how it functions.  Human Body is actually part of the Basher Science Books series; Basher has also illustrated a number of board books and picture books for toddlers that present early concepts such as Opposites and Shapes.  They’re really cute, and the kids at my bookstore love them.  I highly recommend them for young reluctant readers or budding scientists 8 or 9 and up who want to read a basic science book without being overwhelmed by sophisticated details.