On the Clip Board

Here are some of the books that our tweens are reading this week.

Top Ten Deadliest Sharks, by Joe Brusha

A Whole Nother Story, by Dr. Cuthbert Soup

The Fantastic Secret of Owen Juster, by Barbara O'Connor

The Vanishing Violin, by Michael D. Bell

The Teacher's Funeral, by Richard Peck

Meanwhile: Pick any Path. 3,856 Story Possibilities, by Jason Shiga

I have been getting quite a few requests in the library for Choose Your Own Adventures these days.  The requests are coming from both the younger and the older set, which is pretty interesting to me.  One of the bolder of these that I am giving to the older kids is Meanwhile, by Jason Shiga.

Chocolate or Vanilla?  This choice will sets off an adventure involving quantum physics, inventions, and entropy among other things.  Our young ice cream fan needs a bathroom, and finds one in a lab where he gets the privilege of testing out some inventions (which ones are entirely up to you!). 

Differing from the typical Choose Your Own Adventure, this is in no way a linear journey.  Readers get to the next segment of the story by following a series of pipes up, down, back and forth and occasionally through a tangled up maze to get to the next segment of the story.

Now, I in no way made it through all 3856 options, but you know what?  I know *several* kids who will take the time and the renewals that it will take in order to do it!  Shiga has a gift for making the uber scientific concepts accessible to kids (and adults) who may not know what things like entropy really mean coming into Meanwhile.

The format is great.  Laminated pages will hold up to all of the back and forth that the pages need to have to make the story work, and the explanation of how the book works is very clear.  This is a great book to gift to someone as they will return to it again and again, even if they only have "10 minutes" to get some reading in.  Meanwhile was recently listed in YALSA's Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens, and I will extend the category to include the tweens as well!

Tween Readers

One of the new things that is going to happen on this here blog, is that I will be interviewing tweens about their reading habits.  The first reader to be interviewed on Tweendom is "Scout".  She has been wandering around my library for years, and when I think of the term "reader" I think of her.

Do you consider yourself a reader?

Definitely!  I love to read, and many of my friends complain that I "read too much."  I read as often as I can.

What are your favorite genres to read?

I enjoy reading realistic fiction, because I can really relate to the characters, historical fiction, because I love hearing about history, and fantasy, because, I mean, who doesn't like to read about wizards and flying and magic talking dragons? 

 

How do you select the books you want to read?

There are many other avid readers in my grade and in other grades, and I love hearing recommendations from them.  If I see a friend reading a good book, I'll probably go to the library and try to find it.  But sometimes I also just browse the library and look for good books.  I have the unfortunate bad habit of starting at the middle of the book, reading to the end and then finishing the beginning. 

 

What is your favorite book so far?

I have 3 favorite books, but I look for more favorites every day.  Currently my favorites are Queens Own Fool, by Jane Yolen, because the writing style is rich and marvelous,  Jacky Daydream, an autobiography of Jaqueline Wilson, because she has a way of making you get lost in the book and never want to come out, and Luv Ya Bunches by Lauren Myracle, because it is filled with real life problems but also real life happiness. 

   

  What is your favorite thing about reading?

   My favorite thing about reading is when I'm reading a good book, I'm totally gone.  Its like I'm traveling through a magical world instead of sitting on the couch, and I can't hear anybody (sometimes a problem around dinner time).  If you are reading the right book, reading can be amazing, and you never want to leave that book until you're finished. 

  

Do you read on an e-reader/phone/computer?

Never!  I do acknowledge that Kindles are practical, but I am a very much old fashioned reader, and I prefer to stick with a normal book instead of a cold computer screen.  Plus, how do you get lost in the story with a computer? 

   

What kinds of books do you think are the most popular with kids your age?  Why?

I think that adventure novels have been very popular with kids in my grade this year.  I see many people reading books such as The Hunger Games and Alex Rider.  I don't love adventure novels, but I can see how living a normal life in middle school can make you want some adventure. 

 

 What are you currently reading?

I've just finished To Kill A Mockingbird (everybody I asked loved it, so I had to find out whether it was good.)  I have started Born On A Blue Day, which is a memoir of an autistic savant.  It is an interesting perspective on life.

New Blog Alert

You all know how much fun it is to find a new blog, right?  Well this one is a little extra special since it is authored by a real life tween who I just happen to know.
"Scout" has been wandering around my library since she was about 3 and has just started her very own blog, which she has called "Blog 4 Book Lovers" .  Her  first review is for Lauren Myracle's Luv Ya Bunches, and if you head over to take a look, you can see what she thinks!

Welcome to the kidlitosphere, Scout!

On the Clip Board

There are many familiar faces on the list this week.  Word of mouth and peer recommendations go far in our school, and these are some of our students' favs!

The Name of This Book is Secret, by Psuedonymous Bosch

The Falcon's Malteser, by Anthony Horowitz

Stanford Wong Flunks Big Time, by Lisa Yee

Peter and the Shadow Thieves, by Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson

TMBS and the Prisoner's Dilemma, by Trenton Lee Stewart

Diary of a Wimpy Kid - The Ugly Truth

So, what was the release date of this book? November 9th or something?  Well, it left our shelf on that day and didn't come back until Friday.  I snagged it and used a couple of commutes to get it read so that I can put it on the shelf to disappear for the next 3 months!

Greg and Rowley are on the outs.  Greg is considering his options for new friends, but he has to face the fact that they are few and far between.  Christopher Brownfield is more of a summer friend (he's really great for keeping mosquitos away!) and Tyson Sanders has a bathroom habit that's hard overlook.

More is changing in Greg's life than just his body (a fact that he can't avoid thanks to  his teacher insisting showers happen after PE and his mother giving him an embarrassing puberty book).  His mother has decided to go back to school.  Since she is not around so much, Greg, his brothers and father are left to fend for themselves for dinner, cleaning and getting ready for school often to disasterous results, as you can imagine.

One of the best segments in the book happens when the school has a lock-in sleep over.  After all of the games and cellphones are confiscated, the fun begins with ice-breaker games, too many chaperones and an incident involving body parts and polaroid cameras! 

There were fewer laugh-out-loud moments in this installment, and Greg isn't really growing too much as a character, however, tweens are still eating up the series.  The vignette style means that readers generally will recognize their lives in the book somewhere, whether it's having to take care of an egg for health class, being locked in at school for a sleepover, or having a parent who goes back to work.  The stories are solidly in tween territory now with issues of friendship, puberty, family and the search for self swirling through the pages.

On the Clip Board

Here are some titles our tweens checked out this week!

Crash, by Spinelli

Liberty Porter First Daughter, by DeVillers

Shug, by Han 

The Remarkable and Very True Story of Lucy and Snowcap, by Bouwman

The Green Lantern Chronicles, by Broome

















What are your tweens reading?

ALA Midwinter

I am back from sunny San Diego and the ALA Mid Winter meeting.  This is a time of committee meeting on top of committee meeting, and the drama of the announcements of the Youth Media Awards.

Highlights of this trip for me, were catching up with old friends, meeting new friends, passing Neil Gaiman on the street, awarding a grant to a very deserving program, and dipping my toes in Newbery work.

As I've stated before, this year the blog will feature older titles, what the kids are reading, and some author highlights.  I am thinking of profiling some tween readers as well. 

I look forward to reading all of your blogs to see what is catching your eyes and hearts this year!

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!

Closing Shop for the Holidays

Hey all!  I am closing up shop here for the holidays.  I will see you back in 2011 (eeek!) for a banner year of book talking.  I'm depending on you all for the 2011s, but I will have lots of reads from the past as well as those amazing books that didn't get the press that ( I thought) they deserved!

Happy Holidays!

The Top 5

 

Well, it's that time of year again.  The time of the lists.  The time that I *love*!  It's been a pretty stellar year in kidlit this year, and I found myself arranging and rearranging my Top 5 list.  This year, unlike previous years, I am sticking to the tween titles.  This list doesn't attempt to be balanced at all.  And of course, there are only the titles that I read that I am considering.  That said, the list is pretty sweet, if I do say so myself!

What Happened on Fox Street, by Tricia Springstubb

The Kneebone Boy, by Ellen Potter

One Crazy Summer, by Rita Williams-Garcia

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, by Tom Angleberger

Turtle in Paradise, by Jennifer L. Holm

So there you have it!

What are your favourite 2010 books for tweens?

On the Clip Board

Apologies for the absence, but here are some of the titles that our tweens have been checking out!

 The Misadventures of Maude March, by Coulumbis

The Candymakers, by Mass

The Secret Order of the Gumm Street Girls, by Primavera

The Arrival, by Tan

We Are So Crashing Your Bar Mitzvah!!, by Rosenbloom

Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword, by Barry Deutsch

Readers get a sense of who Mirka is from the very first panel in this charming graphic novel.  While Mirka (who would rather be out fighting dragons) is knitting, her stepmother informs her that she dropped a stitch.  Instead of pulling out her knitting to the dropped stitch and continuing, Mirka argues with Fruma that Hashem must have preordained the dropped stitch, so why should she fix it?  That's Mirka; strong willed, a bit against the grain, and her own girl.

Mirka lives with her family in the Orthodox Jewish community of Hereville.  Expectations are clear, and Mirka and her siblings know what is expected of them.  What is unexpected is the tall, narrow house that Mirka finds in the woods one day.  Mirka brings her brother and sisters back to the house to prove to them it's real, but instead of seeing the floating witch that Mirka insists she saw, all they see is a giant pig that appears when Mirka takes a grape off one of the vines by the house. Mirka has never seen a pig before, and this proves very scary indeed, especially when the pig decides to chase her!

Before she knows it, the pig is pretty much haunting Mirka.  Even though her stepsister tells Mirka just what a pig is, Mirka is convinced that it's a monster and even searches through her forbidden Monster book to find information about it!  Mirka becomes obsessed, insisting that the pig has stolen her homework and decides that she is going to catch it once and for all!  She enlists little brother Zindel and they are soon hatching a plan to catch the pig and to rid Zindel of the bullies that have been tormenting him.

What follows is a wonderful blend of fantasy, quest and a window into the Orthodox Jewish world.  Mirka manages to get what she wants without outright rejecting her culture and faith, but finding ways to work them into her desires.  There is nothing that Mirka loves more than her family, and her quest to have a proper sword proves to be an awakening of sorts on this very topic.  Deutsch's portrayal of the relationships between siblings as well as those between children and parents are completely realistic, and readers will be able to identify with the characters regardless of their faith or their cultural background.

Completely different and refreshing, Hereville will quickly rise to the top of the recommendations that kids give to other kids.

Scary Godmother, by Jill Thompson

I have been a fan of the Scary Godmother for some time now.  I loved the cartoons on television, and was bound a determined to find some of Jill Thompson's books of the same name.  It was hard, however, as they seemed to be out of print.  Thanks to Dark Horse Books' release of all of the stories bound together in one GORGeous hardcover edition, I was able to go to my local independent comic shop and pick up this coffee table worthy book.

Found inside are 5 quintessential Scary Godmother stories: "The Scary Godmother", "The Revenge of Jimmy", "The Mystery Date", "The Boo Flu", and "Tea for Orson".  Readers will quickly get acquainted with life on the Fright Side as well as the main characters of The Scary Godmother, Hannah Marie, Jimmy, Skully Pettibone and the rest.  Told with panels, but with straight lines of text as well, Scary Godmother truly blends the lines between graphic novel, illustrated novel and picture book.

The big sell of this collection is, of course, Thompson's art.  She is an accomplished illustrator who has worked on everything from Sandman to Wonder Woman .  Her spooky palette of orange, black, purple, and green will appeal not only to the youngest tweens, but to burgeoning goths as well.  My personal favourite panels are in silhouette with orange background and show such scenes are Scary Godmother swooping down the stairs with Hannah Marie, or a macabre parade of monsters heading over to Scary Godmother's place to find out who she fancies. 

Do yourself a favor and pick this one up!

Crunch, by Leslie Connor

In North America we don't often consider what would happen if we couldn't get gas for our cars.  Sure it happened in the 1970s, but it's not going to happen again...right?

Dewey Marriss and his 4 brothers and sisters are waiting on their parents who are on their annual anniversary drive.  Dewey's dad is making deliveries on the east coast, and every July their mom travels with him for a bit of time away from the kids.  All of the pumps are dry, however, and  Dewey's folks are stuck up near the Canadian boarder for the duration meaning that Dewey and his big sister Lil are going to be in charge not only of the little kids, but of the family's other business the Bike Barn.

Since there is a fuel crunch, the bike business is booming, and bikes and bike parts are a bit hard to come by.  Dewey and his brother Vince are doing the best they can to keep the business going, but the fun in fixing bikes is quickly disappearing!

And the fun is not all that is disappearing...Dewey is noticing some of their expensive and hard to come by bike parts are disappearing as well!  But who to suspect?  Could it be old Mr. Spivey who sometimes helps himself to the Marriss' stuff...be it a goat to munch his grass or some eggs for breakfast?  Could it be one of their increasing number of disgruntled customers who cannot get their bikes back quickly enough?  Could it be a friend of theirs?

Leslie Connor has written a mystery that has an interestingly timeless feel to it.  Dewey and his brothers and sisters are all memorable characters, and having the parents stranded far away made for adventures with a more important feel.  There is equal boy and girl appeal with mechanics of bicycles given as much room as character interactions.  While the "who" in "who done it" comes across pretty quickly, instead of being disappointed, readers will be rooting for the Marriss kids to put the pieces together.

As the folks over at Bookends have stated, Dewey and his family are refreshingly normal even though they are situated in abnormal times.

A pleasure to read!

On the Clipboard

 Faith, Hope and Ivy June, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

 Dunk, by David Lubar

 Dragons of Darkness, by Antonia Michaelis

 N.E.R.D.S, by Michael Buckley

The Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett

The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Gross Junior Edition, by David Borgenicht, Nathaniel Marunas and Robin Epstein (illustrated by Chuck Gonzales)

I pride myself on having a pretty strong stomach…after all I am a mother, and I do work with other people’s children on a daily basis, but I do have to admit there were a couple of moments during reading that sent my stomach for a twirl.

Broken down into the chapters of “The Human Body”, “Home”, “School” and the “Wild Kingdom” readers are treated to fast paced facts and tips about all things gross and coping with those things. From boogers to farts (and laying the blame), from drinking fountains to finding the cleanest stall, readers will delight in the disgusting mix of facts (did you know we make and swallow 4 juice boxes worth of snot a day?), and techniques for fixing problems from bad breath, to lice, to getting rid of skunk smell.

The perfect ratio of illustrations to text rounds out this quick read that will easily have kids gathered around and exclaiming loudly as they share. Tweens tend to be on the cusp of being worried about cool and delighting in all things disgusting. Being in a classroom with these kids has taught me to expect a myriad of sights and smells from day to day, and The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Gross Junior Edition will bring some humor and levity to the horrors of everyday puberty and school life as well as bringing cool little known facts about wild animals, insects, and diseases to light. There are also some cool end papers with recipes for making face snot, fake puke, fake poop and fake blood.

Fun, fun, fun.

But be warned.You may not want to read this one on a full stomach!

On the Clipboard

It has been a loooooooong time since my last clipboard post (or my last post for that matter!), but here we are again.  For those of you who do not know, our library has an honour system for the times Jen, Jesse or myself are not at the reference desk.  Students write down their name and the barcodes of the books that they are checking out.  It's an interesting way to find out some of the"hot" titles, as well as those books that kids want to check out when the adults are not around!

 The Unsinkable Walker Bean, by Renier

 Jack Blank and the Imagination Nation, by Myklusch

 President of the Whole Fifth Grade, by Winston

 Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror, by Boylan

















What are your tweens reading?

Pies & Prejudice, by Heather Vogel Frederick

The girls are back, and this time they are tackling some Austen as well as a cultural exchange of sorts!

The girls are 15 now and everyone seems to know what they want to do with their lives except for Jess. She’s throwing herself into her life at the Academy, and things are better since she no longer has to room with snotty Savannah (who is turning out not to be so snotty after all). She’s singing in the MadriGals and now her mom has her enrolled in a cake decorating class. It’s not really her thing, but she feels like she has to do it since she doesn’t really get to see her family as much as she used to.

Cassidy is still into hockey but her nice surprise is that she’s bonding with Stanley more than ever. Who knew her dorky step-dad would be such a sports nut and go to bat for Cassidy with her mom so that she can play with the elite girl’s team in the area? He’s even getting up at the crack of dawn to drive her to practice.

Megan’s passion for fashion is going strong, and she’s adding an anonymous blog to her resume. “Fashionista Jane” is a helpful yet snarky commentator on the world of fashion at her school. Not only is she showing readers how to rework their wardrobes, she also has a fashion faux pas section which is super popular. Too bad it bruises a few egos along the way.

The biggest change is in store for Emma and her family who up and leave for England for a year. At first Emma and Darcy aren’t thrilled with their parents’ announcement. They only got 2 weeks notice! But the allure of England and Jane Austen territory in particular is thrilling for Emma. Yes, she’ll miss Stewart, but it is only for a year.

Vogel Frederick has written another installment that is fun filled yet more grown up than the previous titles. She has managed to keep the girls innocent yet believable, and bringing the Hawthornes to England was a great way to introduce new characters and switch the focus a bit. Romances abound and will keep readers titillated without resorting to choosing “teams”. I don’t want to give too many plot points away, but suffice it to say that the laughter that came with the reading was familiar, while the tears were not. Fans will be delighted, and new readers will be able to jump right in.

The Danger Box, by Blue Balliett

Zoomy is a special little kid who lives with his grandparents Gam and Gumps in the same house where his dad was raised. Zoomy’s never met his dad, since he was left on the doorstep, but his grandparents knew without a doubt that Zoomy was theirs by the note taped to the cat carrier that held him: “Buckeye Chamberlain Is My Father My Name Is Zoomy Kep Me Please”. Even though Zoomy looks nothing like his grandparents they have raised him and try to help him manage.

Zoomy’s got a couple of issues. If he doesn’t keep his lists, his days fly apart and he can’t stop tap, tap, tapping at this chin. His eyesight is so bad that Gumps keeps a running commentary of bumps and curbs when they walk to their shop, "Chamberlain’s Antiques and What Nots" in the heart of their small town of Three Oaks Michigan.

Zoomy lives for his summertime routine involving laundry, the vegetable garden, trips to the public library and his grandparent’s shop, but now there is Lorrol – the firecracker girl who doesn’t live in town, but is in the library this summer trying to avoid going to camp. Zoomy has never been too comfortable with other kids, but Lorrol is different. She doesn’t think he’s weird, she actually thinks that he is smart!

Three Oaks isn’t the kind of town that is ripe for mysteries, but this summer isn’t a typical one. Lorrol isn’t the only person who comes to town unexpectedly. Buckeye comes back, driving a truck and bearing a box that he wants his parents to keep. Zoomy is terrified of his father, who seems random and unpredictable and not exactly loving. Shortly after Buckeye, another stranger shows up who is very interested in the box in Gam and Gumps’ shop. And there is also the journal that Zoomy found wrapped in the quilt that was in the box that his dad brought. It’s peaked his interest with the old dates and the strange words, and all of the lists within.

Blue Balliett has written an extraordinarily atmospheric story, with layers and layers to dig in to. It’s not just a mystery, or a story about a special boy. It’s has friendship and family, history and loss. Readers will not be overwhelmed with Zoomy’s unnamed special needs status (outside of the Pathological Myopa) which Balliett presents as a matter of fact. When I closed The Danger Box I was amazed at how Balliett could seamlessly weave all of the components into the story without it feeling disjointed. In lesser hands, the story could easily have fallen apart.

Nice and Mean, by Jessica Leader

Whenever I am in the mood for some tween realistic fiction that is fun yet solidly written, I know that I can reach for a title from Aladdin Mix. I have yet to be disappointed. This time I read the title Nice and Mean by Jessica Leader, and I know I’ll have something to hand off to my tween girls this September.

Marina is mean. There’s no real getting around it. She’s not quite queen bee material, but at Jacobs Middle School she decides what category kids fall into, especially regarding their fashion choices. She does read Seventeen and watch all of the fashion shows on television after all!

Sachi, on the other hand, is a nice girl. So nice, in fact, that she got voted “Nicest Girl” in nasty Marina’s poll of kids in their school. By why do people think Sachi’s so nice? Sure she lends out enough pencils that she has to dip into her own allowance to replenish, but she doesn’t have too many friends who really know her. She’s all about school because that is how her parents want her to be. They moved from India and sacrifice to stay in Manhattan for Sachi and her two sisters, and they expect the best.

Ironically enough, Sachi did something not so nice in order to get into video class. Her folks want her in Test Prep to give her a leg up in a couple of years to get into Stuyvesant (Manhattan’s super competitive academic high school). Sachi forged her parents’ signatures and now finds herself paired of with Marina of all people for her video project. A video based on the fashion show Victim/Victorious was not was Sachi had in mind when she was going to all of the trouble of getting into the class.

Marina does have a knack of getting her way, but at the last minute Sachi lets her video teacher know that she is interested in another angle of the fashion question. Namely, why are some things in and some out? Who decides? In fact, why are some cultures considered cooler than others? Their teacher lets the girls work separately in the name of getting things done, but when Marina breaks some rules and brings a copy of her rough cut of video home to work on and some of her friends see the way that her fashion victim Rachel is treated, everything hits the fan.

Marina’s actions have lots more consequences than she ever could have foreseen. One being that she needs Sachi more than she ever could have imagined. Will Sachi be able to find her own voice and speak up for what she needs?

Jessica Leader has gotten the multiple worlds of the middle schooler down pat. Seventh grade tends to be a time of big changes…of kids figuring out who they want to be and where they are going to fit in. Marina and Sachi, while seemingly opposites, illustrate this beautifully. Round out the cast of their satellite friends and many types of kids are shown without seeming like Leader simply lined up types and put them in. Nice and Mean shows readers that most likely, the kids they think of as mean aren’t all mean, and the kids who seem nice definitely have some back story of their own!

The 2011s Are Coming! The 2011s Are Coming!

It's hard to believe, especially since there are plenty of exciting 2010s left to read, but it's true.

So what does that mean here at Welcome to My Tweendom?

Usually it would mean I start blurbing those books, but this year is a little different.  I am very excited to be on the ALA 2012 Newbery Committee.  This means that if it's a children's book, and comes out in 2011, chances are I will be reading it.   In the name of staying as far away from  a conflict of interest as possible the focus at Welcome to My Tweendom will shift for the year.

What you won't find here are reviews and blurbs of the 2011s.  What you will find are reviews and blurbs of past Newbery winners, my still enormous pile of 2010 titles, and books that I feel have been overlooked in the past.  Once school is in session there will be lists of what our tweens are checking out on the clipboard.

I am super excited about this next reading year, and I can't wait to troll the blogs and find out what you all are reading!

Karma Bites, by Stacy Kramer and Valerie Thomas

Franny Flanders isn’t exactly in love with her life. Her two best friends no longer speak to each other, her trippy grandmother has comes to stay since her parents split, and her mother is in meltdown mode.

In an effort to have more fun, Franny decides to dye her naturally red hair blond. Anyone who knows anything about hair dye knows that getting red to blond should be left to the professionals, and Franny in turn is left with neon orange locks. Not exactly the look she was going for. In an act of desperation, Franny goes to her grandmother for help. Her friend Joey reasons that since Gran is old, maybe she’s wise as well and can help with the hair situation!

Well, Granny does decide to help and frankly, Franny is a little embarrassed about the production that involves beakers, tinctures, olive oil, smoke, sparks and alchemy?! Somehow it works and Franny asks her Granny what the heck happened, but she refuses and simply warns Franny that there may be some side effects

What she doesn’t mention is that the side effects are of the social suicide variety! Franny’s middle school is completely divided by cliques and there is a set of unwritten laws about who to talk to, where to eat et cetera. Franny’s side effect has her talking to kids who shouldn’t be talked to and talking back to the Queen Bees!

When she finally gets her Granny to spill about her recipe for fixing her hair, Granny introduces Franny to the Hindi Help Box…a magical box that helps fix problems with different recipes. Franny can’t believe it. There are loads of problems in her life and her middle school that need fixing! She can’t understand why Granny won’t hand over the box and let Franny go to town.

But Granny is too trusting, and soon Franny is “fixing” the relationship between her two best friends Joey and Kate. She’s “fixing” boring teachers. And she’s “fixing” her dad’s girlfriend. But what Franny hasn’t counted on is the butterfly effect…the fact that all of this messing around she is doing affects everything else in her world. Can Franny fix all of the fixing that she has done? What are the outcomes of using magic to further her own ends?

Stacy Kramer and Valerie Thomas have written a breezy story that reads like a television sit-com with over-the-top characters and situations. But that’s not a bad thing! The underlying message of being careful what you wish for is loud and clear, but is presented in a thoroughly entertaining way. While Franny’s middle school has more cliques than I have personally ever encountered, the archetypes wear their characters well. The one pause I was given was with the character of the Lama who comes to Franny and Granny’s aid…he is given quite the Hollywood treatment and I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. But if readers take his character in the spirit with which he is given, I think that his character works for this book.Liz Burns over at A Chair A Fireplace and A Tea Cozy gets it right when she explains who this book is for.

Another fun piece of this title that needs to be mentioned are the recipes from the box that are provided ranging from the “Sensationally Sexy Smoothie” to the “Forget it Fudge”. Tweens looking for fun will eat this up!

Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror

While I was at ALA in DC, I was fortunate enough to attend a breakfast hosted by the kind folks at HarperCollins. I was doubly fortunate to have the whirwind that is author Jennifer Finney Boylan sit down next to me, slap her hands on her copy of  Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror and launch into an extraordinary book-talk. Falcon Quinn made it to the top of my pile, due in large part for her enthusiasm for the book.

Falcon is waiting for the bus as usual, accompanied by quiet Megan and not-so-quiet Max. As they board the bus, Falcon notices a new driver, but doesn’t think too much about it, as he is distracted by some creepiness in the graveyard across the street. Before they know it, the 3 are careening through the streets, skipping stops and are soon deposited through the Bermuda Triangle and into another world.

They find themselves in the quad of Castle Grisleigh, where they are met by Mrs. Redflint who tells them that they are actually monsters and that Castle Grisleigh is an academy for monsters…a place where they can learn how to suppress their true natures and live among humans. At the Castle, the monsters are divided up by types with the sasquatches staying with sasquatches, vampires with vampires et cetera. Mrs. Redflint isn’t exactly sure what kind of monster Falcon is yet and Falcon finds himself feeling just as out of place at the Academy as he had on the outside. He doesn’t know what kind of monster he is, and even if he did, he’s not sure he would want to suppress his monsterness anyway! Just look at Max…he is loving his life as a sasquatch, why should he pretend just to be a big, hairy boy?

Jennifer Finney Boylan has written a fun and funny story about the nature of fitting in and finding friends. While she has said that Falcon is not a metaphor, the message about categories and acceptance comes across loud and clear. I have found over time that most kids do not mind the apparent messages found in many books, and I doubt that they will have an issue this time, as they themselves are in the heart of trying to figure out who they are and how to treat other kids who don’t identify as they do.  It is a big book at 486 pages, but it starts nice and quickly, and over-the-top characters like Perla (La Chupakabra), and Weems (the ghoul) will keep readers laughing out loud and wondering what will happen next.

The Kneebone Boy, by Ellen Potter

As fellow readers, I am sure that some of you have experienced this. The siren song of a book simply from title and cover art alone. This was my initial experience with The Kneebone Boy by Ellen Potter. Now, I have enjoyed Potter’s work in the past, so I wasn’t worried at all about experiencing the dreaded feeling of, “but I wanted to like this book!” that happens when readers fall for covers and titles sometimes. From the creepy dark haired young children staring out with their older blond brother wrapped in a scarf and holding a cat, to the bare feet hanging from the tree, I was simply intrigued.

Upon opening the arc, I was greeted with Chapter 1 followed by a bit of foreshadowing of the upcoming chapter: “In which we meet the Hardscrabbles, unearth a triceratops bone, and begin to like Lucia even more.” The Hardscrabbles are siblings Otto, Lucia and Max, who all live in the town of Little Tunks with their artist father Casper. Their mum is simply gone. She had been there, then she wasn’t. As in most small towns, the rumours began to spread…especially when Otto gives up talking aloud (he has invented a sort of sign language that he and Lucia use) and takes to wearing his mum’s scarf everywhere.

Casper is a peculiar sort of artist in that he paints portraits of royalty…exclusively exiled royalty. Casper says, "...there is something extraordinary about the face of a person who has fallen from greatness. They remind me of angels tossed out of heaven who are now struggling to manage the coin-operated washing machine at the Scrubbly-Bubbly Laundromat" (arc p.23) As you can imagine, exiled royals are not big on settling up their bills, so the Hardscrabbles don't live a luxurious existence by any means, and it means that their father is often traveling to wherever it is that the exiles are.

Usually when their dad goes away, the children stay with kooky Mrs. Carnival from down the way, but this time Casper tells them that they are to stay with their cousin Angela in London. Lucia especially is quite excited about this turn of events, and some time in London would be great if cousin Angela were actually at home.  Stuck on their own in London, the kids come up with a plan that doesn't involve staying back in Little Tunks with Mrs. Carnival.  Instead of trying to head home, the kids go on another adventure to find their Great Aunt Haddie in Snoring-by-the-Sea.

It turns out that not-so-old Haddie is renting a castle folly that is chock-full of its own secrets, including the entrance (a Tyrolean traverse), a parent castle (named the Kneebone Castle), and some pretty interesting rats.

I don’t want to go too deeply into the plot and get all spoiler-y. Suffice it to say there are some twists and turns that will make readers want to start flipping back through the text looking for clues. From the beginning where readers are told that the narrator is one of the Hardscrabbles, but not which one, to the very big reveal, Potter has woven together a plot that flows pretty seamlessly. The characters are all well developed (I grew particularly fond of Otto) and their personalities will draw readers in. This is the kind of book that captures readers at the beginning and keeps them in its thrall all the way through. Emily Reads captures the essence in her haiku review found here.

I, Emma Freke by Elizabeth Atkinson

Emma Freke doesn’t have it easy.Why couldn’t her mother have at least said her name aloud before naming her: “am a freak”?That is exactly how Emma feels.She doesn’t fit in with her expressive Italian mom, Donatella, who likes to leave out the fact that she has a daughter while she is meeting potential suitors.Her Nonno, who lives with them above their bead shop, is either asleep in his chair or out walking the dog. And you can imagine what school can be like for a 5’ 10’’ tall 11-year-old with her name.

Donatella, in a rare instance of maternal action, gives Emma a thoughtful birthday gift this year. Home-schooling! Donatella says that Emma’s Nonno will help out with the teaching by bringing Emma to the library daily, as home-schooled kids generally do.Emma realizes that the materials her mom gave her to use are a bit dated, so she enlists the librarian Stevie, to suggest some more recent workbooks at a higher grade-level. Stevie makes a few phonecalls, and Emma isn’t really surprised to hear that Donatella didn’t exactly go through the proper channels to get Emma into home-schooling in the first place. This makes Emma think on something that her neighbor and best friend Penelope planted in her brain…maybe Emma, like Penelope, is actually adopted. It would explain a few things. She doesn’t look like her mom or her other relatives, and she certainly doesn’t act like them.

No such luck. In an unexpected turn of events, Emma is soon whisked off to the Freke family reunion. She knows that her own father who she has never met will not be there due to a rift in his own family relations, but maybe Emma will find some sense of place in her namesake family.

Elizabeth Atkinson has written a story about family and finding your place in it. What is a family, after all? Can you ever fight how you fit in yours? What traits do you pull from the folks who raise you, and what do you get from genetics? It’s also a story about finding your voice, your courage and your confidence. Diversity of all sorts is woven into the story, from Phoebe’s lesbian moms, and Phoebe’s own Liberian decent, to Emma’s own inter-generational family and her cousin Fred’s non-conformity. Feeling like the square peg is very understandable for tweens, and readers will be charmed by Emma’s journey.