Violet in Bloom: A Flower Power Book

The girls are back ready to start really using their website and to get past the FIST incident (Fake Incident of the Stolen Turtle) that ended up bringing them all together in the first place.  After Katie-Rose posts a meet up on Luvyabunches.com, Yassaman wants to get the girls to start to honor their second promise after being FFFs, which is to use their flower power for good.  She has an idea that she wants to share with the girls, but Katie-Rose's strong personality is making it hard to do.  Yassaman takes to their website to tell the girls.

Yassaman wants to launch a snack attack!  She has been doing some research and has discovered that the Cheezy Nips that their teachers hand out at snack are really bad for you and filled with the kind of ingredients that lead to being overweight and having heart problems.  She just needs to girls to help her come up with some ideas as to how to make their school a Cheezy Nip free zone.

Each girl is looking at the problem from her own angle, but each girl has something else going on in her life as well!  For Milla it's her crush on Max.  She's even willing to overcome her fear of his hamster to spend some quality time with him.  After all, he's smart and cool and nice...Milla figures that is worth holding Stewy (the hamster).  She even starts to like Stewy, and everything is going great until he gogo boot and Stewy get a little too close for comfort.  Now she's mortified, still crushing and she can't look Max in the eye.  The snack attack seems like a good distraction from her worries, so Milla digs into some research and finds out some stuff about the company that makes Cheezy Nips that really makes the girls want to get them out of their school.

For Violet, it's her mom.  Her mom is still in the hospital dealing with her issues, and Violet hasn't even been to see her, even though her dad has asked her to go.  Violet's just not ready.  But when she gets called down to the office one day for a phone call, and her mother's on the other end begging her to come visit, what can she do?  To make matters worse, Cyril was resting on a mat in the office and he heard the whole thing.  Sure Cyril doesn't talk much, but he is always writing in that notebook, and while Violet was on the phone he was scribbling away.  Just how much did he hear?  And what if he tells?

Katie-Rose is stressing because Natalia keeps shoving herself into the flower friends.  She has jumped on Yassaman's snack attack idea with vigor, even making cute buttons for kids to wear.  Katie-Rose does not like how Natalia is always with Yassaman and seems to be trying to push her out of the way.  Katie-Rose decides that she will be the one to make the snack attack idea work, no matter how over-the-top her methods may be.

Can these four friends put their own issues aside and get the job done?

Once more Lauren Myracle has written a friendship story that rings true.  There is so much going on in the middle school years, and 6th grade is definitely a time of transition.  The girls are passionate, but still trying to find their voices and their way.  It's easy to be mean without meaning to, especially with friends, and Myracle gets it just right.  The worrying, the loving and the anger.  I really like how each girl brings something to the story, and I really like how they genuinely care about one another.

If you have any doubts as to whether food ingredients or maltreatment of animals are issues that are on 6th graders' minds, let me tell you that they are.  The school where I work had significant cafeteria changes after a group of middle schoolers looked into the treatment of animals by a certain company.  The school no longer orders from that company...and it was all thanks to the students!

Fans of the first book will eat this one up, and new readers will not have a problem getting into this episode of the story.  The cover appeal alone will take this off the shelves, but readers will hand it from tween to tween and it may not come back to the shelf for a while!

Dear Julia

So a quick internet search yields over 43 million hits for "Julia Child". In these times of celebrity chefs and reality food shows, you may think that Julia wouldn't catch hold with the younger set, but you'd be wrong. With films like Julie & Julia opening to the tune of $20 million, Julia Child is as much of a pop culture phenom as she's ever been.

Elaine Hamilton has been writing letters to Julia Child since before she could spell. Elaine is the eye in the hurricane of her family, calmly waking before her 4 brothers and parents and preparing filling breakfasts, packing delicious lunches, and serving Friday dinners that could rival the local French Restaurant. Elaine is obsessed with Julia Child and haute cuisine.

Lucida Sans (aka Isadora Wilhelminetta Fischburger), on the other hand, wants to be FAMOUS! For what, she's not sure, but with her costumed existence, two mom headed family, and penchant for over-the-top solos during theater auditions, she certainly gets noticed.

Elaine and Lucida cross paths at the New Paltz Festival on the Green, when Elaine is handing out fliers for her feminist/politician mother, and Lucida's interpretation of Juliet brings about a chain of events of epic proportions resulting in some serious flames. Lucida takes a liking to Elaine, and being a girl with few friends herself, Elaine accepts an invitation to Lucida's for dinner.

Thus begins an opposites-attract friendship that brings Elaine out of her shell, and helps to tone down Lucida. The pages are filled with amazing foodie moments, characters that are bigger than life, and wacky revenge plots. Amy Bronwen Zemser has written a fun-filled book examining what it means to be a family, a friend, and oneself. Elaine's brothers are hilarious with cross-dressing Chris taking the cake, and Lucida herself is a delight. As Cindy Dobrez of Bookends puts it, "the whole book was so over the top that those crazy elements work."

While the setting is high school, this is the perfect book for a more sophisticated tween reader. There is a dash of romance, lots of ups and downs about friendship, and two odd-girl-out characters who are totally endearing and independent.

A laugh-out-loud read for girls...finally.

Madame Pamplemousse and her Incredible Edibles

Madeleine is a talented little cook, but her gifts are squashed every summer when she goes to work for her restaurateur Uncle Lard while her parents are off jet setting. Uncle Lard's establishment, The Squealing Pig does have some talented people working within, but the problem is with Lard himself. He insists on having specialties of the house that he concocts. Dishes like Pig's Ear Pizza, Kidney Burger with Double Cream, and Crab Ravioli in Warm White Chocolate Sauce! (p. 9)

One day Madeleine is away from the kitchen searching out her Uncle's favourite pate, when she follows a cat and stumbles upon a peculiar shop simply called Edibles. As soon as she steps through the door, Madeline knows that this is a special place. When Madam Pamplemousse (and her cat Camembert) suddenly appears and asks Madeleine what she wants, Madeleine feels a bit frightened but ends up asking for pate. But instead of the mixed innards pate that her Uncle loves, Mme. Pamplemousse hands Madeleine a jar of green pate, labeled "Pate of North Atlantic Sea Serpent with Green Peppercorn Mustard" (p. 21) Even though it is not what she needs, Madeleine takes it back to the restaurant and convinces the Head Chef to simply replace the mixed innards variety with the sea serpent variety for that evening.

The pate, however, has quite an effect on those who consume it, and soon Uncle Lard is thundering into the kitchen and demanding to know where it came from. When the jar falls out of Madeleine's pocket, Uncle Lard has the answer he needs.

What follows is a game of cat and mouse between Uncle Lard, Mme. Pamplemousse, Camembert, and Madeleine. Villainous Uncle Lard is over-the-top bad, and readers will delight in his ineptitude. Sue Hellard's illustrations perfectly compliment the text with Uncle Lard looking as piggish as can be, and there are simple no words for the food critic!

This story is a bit of a flight of fancy, and I think that it is perfectly suited for reading aloud. The sense of humour is sophisticated, and the young foodies in the audience will find themselves imagining just what kinds of dishes, are indeed, possible!

Tours, meetings, and chicken korma!

*Whew!* I'm back from my whirlwind trip to Anaheim for ALA's Annual Conference. I left almost before it started since my main thrust was my presentation at the Diversity Leadership Institute, which you can read about over at the ALSC blog! A truly inspiring and informative event!

After the Institute was over, I headed out with my colleague Lana for dinner and we ended up in Downtown Disney. It was quite a sight! We ended up having some pretty delicious tapas before calling it a night.

Next up was the ISS sponsored Independent School Libraries tour. We were fortunate enough to visit two incredibly different and amazing libraries. The first was at the Chadwick School in Palos Verdes. A beautiful facility with a reading room featuring beanbag chairs that our middle school kids would die for! Librarian Sarah Knetzer-Davis gave us a fabulous tour, and went above and beyond by delivering some of our ISS members back to conference so that they could make their sessions! Thank you Sarah!

Next up was the Crossroads School in Santa Monica. This felt a bit like home to me as Crossroads is a progressive school, and I have the feeling that many of the students there are quite similar to the ones I have! We visited the Middle and High School library, and it is an amazing site. Most of (if not all of) Crossroads is made up of buildings that used to be used for industrial purposes. The librarians there were great and it sounds like the library is a super active place during the school year, with the students really feeling at home there!

The afternoon was taken up with an ALSC 101 session. Even though I have been a librarian for YEARS (about 12 now), I have been active more with YALSA. Now I am looking to dive into ALSC, so I figured that I would head on over and meet some folks! We had a rousing get to know you fest, and I came away with a better sense of the organization (as well as an author contact for next year! Woot!)

Finding dinner on Friday night was a bit more difficult. Many places had an hour wait. Wandering home I happened upon Gandhi Palace, where I had some really, REALLY good Indian food. So if you are still at Conference and like Indian food, you really should head on over for some dinner!

Then a 4:10 a.m. wake up call this morning, and here I am back in NYC. I'm a bit sad that I didn't get a chance to head onto the exhibit floor, but I am happy to be home!