The Truth About Twinkie Pie

I was lucky enough to receive this ARC a long time ago. It was irresistible.  I mean, look at that cover! Read that title! I am a person who has never even had a twinkie, but I knew I needed to read this one.  Sometimes a book just gives you a feeling, and this one was calling to me.

Twelve year old Gigi (short for Galileo Galilei) and big sister Didi (short for Delta Dawn) have moved from their trailer park digs in South Carolina to an apartment in Long Island.  One of the only things they have brought with them is their late mother's recipe book which helped the girls win big money in a cooking contest, and Didi is set on giving Gigi a better life that she had.  Gigi is all registered to go to Hill on the Harbor Preparatory School and as long as she keeps following Didi's recipe for success by studying hard and getting top grades, everything will be great.

But here's the thing...Gigi is ready for some changes.   She has even come up with her own recipe for success that doesn't include studying in the library every extra moment of the day.  Instead she wants to find friends her own age, try on a new version of her name, and find ways to have the qualities she knows her late mother would see in her shine.  Gigi (now Leia) is feeling confident about memorizing her locker combination and her schedule and is ready for her first class on her first day when she crashes into Trip who just happens to be the most beautiful boy she's ever seen, and is also in her English class.  All of a sudden this front row girl was sitting in the back row next to Trip.

But change isn't alway smooth or easy, and even though Trip and most of his friends are super nice, mean girl Mace notices Leia's dollar store shoes and less-than-healthy E-Z Cheeze sandwich and makes sure that Leia knows that she is the square peg at school.  Leia can handle the insult about the shoes, but nobody makes fun of Didi's cooking!

Readers will be rooting for Leia as she navigates through all sorts of changes in her life. From the tony world of private school to freshly unearthed family secrets, Leia's life is not following any recipe!  Kat Yeh has written a treat of a middle grade story that will tug on your heart strings and make you smile in equal measure.  The multifaceted characters and rich turns of phrase that had me reading with a twang are only a couple of the reasons I read this book in one big gulp.  The Truth About Twinkie Pie is a book with honesty and heart and I cannot wait to share it with the tweens in my life!

The Red Pencil, by Andrea Davis Pinkney

We begin with Amira's 12 birthday.  She is finally old enough to wear a toob yet young enough to enjoy her Dando lifting her to the sky.  Amira lives on a farm in South Darfur surrounded by friends and family, but changes are afoot.  Amira's best friend Halima and her family are packing their things and moving to the city.  They say the city has more opportunities.  Amira wishes she could go with them to Nyala and attend the Gad Primary School with Halima.  Amira is not so sure about her Muma's old fashioned ways.

                  "She does not like the idea of Gad,
                    or any place where girls learn
                    to read
                    or write,
                    in Arabic or English
                    or think beyond a life
                    of farm chores and marriage." (p. 13 arc)

Soon, the extra chores of 12, missing Halima, and trying to solve the ongoing bickering between her father and villager Old Anwar seem anything but troubling.  The relative peace of her village is shattered when the Janjaweed  attack, changing Amira's very existence.

Amira and the other survivors must pick up the pieces and leave the ruins of the village to find safety.  Their trek takes them to the refugee camp Kalma - the Displaced People's Camp.  Amira doesn't like this space surrounded by fences and barbed wire.

                    "Everywhere I look,
                      I see
                      people, people, and more people.

                      I'm glad to stop walking.
                      I'm glad we have finally reached who-knows-where.
                      But already I do not like this place." (arc p. 139)

It would be easy enough to give up in such a desperate place with no real end in sight.  Amira and her family have lost so much.  But when Amira meets Miss Sabine and is given a gift of a red pencil she discovers some things about herself, her family and those on the journey with her.

Written in free verse, The Red Pencil is a story of family and loss and hope.  It was eye opening for me on a number of levels.  One is that it is so easy for me not to see what is happening in the world from my perch here in NYC.  The horrors of Darfur in the early 2000s seemed so far away in time and place that I wonder how many people in North America are aware of what was happening.  I find myself very impressed with the deftness of Andrea Davis Pinkney's hand when it came to writing the passages dealing with the violence.  She truly tells the story from a 12 year old's point of view, and the free verse format allows for silences that speak volumes.  The illustrations by Shane W. Evans are playful within this serious book and somehow bring a feeling of safety to the pages.

A must read for librarians, teachers and students.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

Here is a title that has been sitting on my tbr pile for quite some time. After all of the Mock Newbery results started pouring in, it was obvious that it was time to move this to the top of the pile! On my way to Boston for ALA’s Midwinter Conference, I had just the time I needed to get reading.

Minli’s family is very poor. In fact, everyone in her village is very poor. They live in the shadow of the Fruitless Mountain, where crops do not grow, and the land is barren and tough. It is all her family can do to work daily on their land and try to harvest enough rice to eat that day. Minli’s parents have very different outlooks on the their existence with Ma spending her time sighing bitterly over their fortune while her Ba fills their empty hours with colourful stories filled with mythical creatures, magic and far off lands. Ma scoffs at the stories, but Minli simply comes alive and seems to glow while she listens.

One day a goldfish seller comes into their little village declaring that a goldfish in the house will bring fortune into one’s home. Minli, with her faith in story, believes the goldfish seller and rushes into her home to get the 2 coins that are hers alone from when she was born. The fish costs her one of her coins and even though others in the village warn her not to believe the man, she happily brings her new fish home.

When her parents return from the fields, her mother is shocked and disappointed that Minli wasted her coin. Ba, however, reminds her that the money is Minli’s to do with what she pleases. Ma only sees the fish as another mouth to feed…something that Minli had not thought about when she first spotted the fish.

Minli decides in the dark of night to free the fish, so that her parents will not have to worry about feeding it. When she releases it in the river, something amazing happens. The fish speaks to her, and tells her how she can change the fortune of her family.

Soon Minli is off on her own, chasing her dream of helping her parents change their fortune. What follows is an adventure of discovery involving a flightless dragon, a boy with one friend, and the Old Man of the Moon.

Grace Lin has written an enchanting story that mixes a rich cultural landscape with a magical quest. Minli has such a pure spirit, that readers can’t help but root for her to overcome all of the odds and help her family. Between the “outside” stories, the pacing is perfect, and while I wondered at first if I would be able to keep momentum during the telling of the “outside” stories, it is managed with ease. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon has all of the qualities of a book with staying power. It will be interesting to see if this appears on some of the lists this year!

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

It's been a year since the kids of the Mysterious Benedict Society foiled the evil Mr. Curtain's plans to take over the world with his Whisperer machine. Sticky, Reynie, Kate and Constance are gathering back together to go on a fun expedition, courtesy of Mr. Benedict. It's to be an international scavenger hunt of sorts, that will rely on all of the children's many talents to lead them to the clues. Nothing, however, seems to result in smooth sailing when these four are supposed to work with Mr. Benedict. This time, before the expedition can even start, there is a kidnapping. Mr. Benedict and Number Two are kidnapped by none other than Mr. Curtain.

The police are working on the case, but the children know that Mr. Curtain has followers high up in government, and they are sure that the case will be most likely be foiled. The children take it upon themselves to find Mr. Benedict and Number Two. What else are they to do?

What follows is quite the "Perilous Journey". The children start out on the original scavenger hunt thinking that Mr. Benedict is most likely being held at the final destination. But whereas there was supposed to be adult supervision on the hunt (Milligan and Rhonda were to come), on this dangerous mission the children are on their own. From ship to land to air and back to land again, they get into and out of scrape after scrape, but the action really intensifies as they get closer to their destination.

This is a title that really cannot be read without reading the original Mysterious Benedict Society. While the characterization goes deeper in this volume, readers really do need the history of the individuals as well as the knowledge of their time together at the school. Jumping into The Perilous Journey first, may end up confusing readers as well as make the storyline seem more of a shallow treatment than it actually is.

This is a dense book, as was the first, but I found this to be a bit more of a slow starter. Don't get me wrong, the action starts quite quickly, but readers simply know from the sheer length of the book that the scrapes will be gotten out of. I do think that fans of the first volume will eat this up, and if they slow down enough to listen to some of Mr. Benedict's monologues on the state of the world, they might find a degree of comfort in the seemingly dangerous world of Reynie, Sticky, Kate and Constance.