The Lost Hero

Okay, I know I'm a little late to the party. This book came out about a month ago and I am only just now getting around to writing about it.

But wow, what a book!

If you liked the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, this one picks up just a few months after The Last Olympian left off, with a trio of demigods visiting the Grand Canyon. Jason wakes up on a bus, completely unsure who he is. On one side of him is Leo, his best buddy. On the other is Piper, his girlfriend. All good -- if he could just remember them.

Eventually the three are "extracted" from their field trip and brought to Camp Half Blood, where the mystery around Jason deepens further: Chiron tells him he's supposed to be dead. In Cabin One, where the children of Zeus are housed, Jason sees a picture of Thalia and realizes that she's his sister. But how is this possible? Chiron knows but is sworn not to talk about it. No less mysterious is Jason's ability to speak Latin and the odd tattoo on his arm. Who is this guy?

Add to this the fact that Zeus has closed Olympus -- no communication in, no communication out -- and Hera appears to have been kidnapped. Jason, Leo and Piper are sent on a quest to rescue the queen of heaven and hopefully prevent the rising of someone or something that will make Kronos look like a Sunday School Picnic. A nice touch is that the story is told from three viewpoints: Jason's, Leo's and Pipers. It's a good move away from the Percy Jackson series that makes this one feel more like it's a new series, albeit with many familiar characters.

Like all Riordan's books, this one's a thrill ride. Action comes thick and fast and it's a compelling read, not least because of the tantalizing clues to the mystery surrounding Jason. This one is targeted for older kids -- the heroes are 15 and act it. There are a few OMGs, but it's otherwise clean. Violence is, as before, somewhat softened by monsters turning to dust when struck. Themes are a little more serious; the infidelities the gods indulge in are touched on with a little more directness and the consequences of those infidelities are played out in people's lives to negative effect. This one might be best for 7th or 8th grade and up.

The Lost Hero is what I like best about kid lit. It's pure entertainment, well written and leaves you dying to find out more. I can't wait for the sequel, due out in the Fall of 2011, and am hoping it's just the beginning of a nice long series.

The Magic Half

Annie Barrows (Ivy and Bean) is a good writer. I like her storytelling, love her use of detail, enjoy the way she unfolds her characters. However, Annie Barrows does one thing that gets under my skin. She has her characters swear. She doesn't do it a lot, but that fact that she does it at all annoys the heck out of me because it's always completely gratuitous.

gratuitous: lacking in benefit; uncalled for or lacking a reasonable basis. In other words, NOT NECESSARY.

Sometimes swearing is critical to the realism of the story. Mexican Whiteboy wouldn't work without a certain grittiness that the swearing adds to the characters and events. It's a tough neighborhood and it wouldn't be believable for the characters to run around saying "Fudge!" But The Magic Half would work just fine without the OMGs and the one "Christ Almighty" which marred an otherwise excellent story.

Eleven year old Miri is the middle child between two sets of twins -- "a one-in-50,000 family" her dad likes to say. But Miri feels isolated. Now in their new house, Miri finds a piece of glass stuck to the wall of her room. She looks through it and finds herself in 1935. Here she meets Molly, who has "called her" to help "set things right" -- though precisely how they're going to do that, neither of them is sure. Molly is similarly isolated, living with an aunt and two cousins who see her as a nuisance and a burden. One cousin, Horst, loses no opportunity to make Molly's life as miserable as possible, even to the point of physically harming her when he can get away with it.

The story does a nice job of transitioning back and forth from the present to 1935. Molly and Miri are believable, as are the other kids in the story, Miri's twin sisters and brothers. It's suspenseful, it's well written, it's got a nice ending. It's such a great story...

Just wish Annie Barrows would lose the swearing.

Ingo: A Series for Mermaid Lovers

Mermaids, I suspect, are a perennial favorite among girls. Unfortunately, books about mermaids tend to be a bit light on literary merit. In a word, they often stink. What a great thing, then, is the Ingo series by Helen Dunmore.

11 year old Sapphire and her brother Connor live in Cornwall, growing up "in sight of the sea," as their mother puts it. One midsummer's night, their father, a fisherman, leaves the family to go for a walk by the ocean and disappears. The family is fractured by his disappearance. When his boat washes ashore some days later, rumors abound -- he drank too much that night and fell overboard, he only made it look like he drowned and he's left them for another woman. But there is one possibility that Sapphire is forced to consider: that he went into the sea of his own free will, lured by something out there, something irresistible.

Her suspicions are sharpened when her brother Connor begins disappearing for hours at a time; in fact, he seems barely conscious of the time he is gone and his manner tells Sapphy that he is being pulled toward the sea as their father was. She sees him sitting on a rock just off the shore, talking to a strange girl, but he denies later that he was with anyone. Then one day, she herself feels drawn, pulled like a magnet toward the ocean, and there she meets Faro, a boy who takes her into the realm of Ingo beneath the sea.

Ingo is a step up from books like The Tale of Emily Windsnap (and for comparison, Emily Windsnap is a step up from the Tinkerbell books). The writing is better, the plot is richer and more complex. The characters and their motives are more finely drawn and more multi-faceted. Even Ingo itself is a riddle: is it good? Is it evil? Do Faro and his sister mean well or ill? It all adds to the tension and the conflict. There's a parallel plot involving Sapphire and Connor's mum, who is beginning to date again and the book explores their feelings for her new friend, who they both like and detest in equal measure. He's a likable guy, but he's not their dad. And they both feel very strongly that their father is still alive, perhaps is even in Ingo.

here are four books in the series. It's been around for a while -- Ingo was published in 2005 -- but the last book was only recently made available in the US. If you have a strong reader, this one could go as young as 9 or 10, and I think its appeal would hold into 8th or even 9th grade. If you have a daughter who likes magic and fantasy, this is a good one to try.

Guardians of Ga'Hoole -- Coming to a Theatre Near You

My oldest daughter got started on the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series by Kathryn Lasky over the summer, mainly because it was one of the selections she could choose from for the Barnes and Noble reading program. She picked it because nothing else looked very interesting and although she wasn't sure she'd like it, she brought it home.

8 weeks later, she has read ten of the 15 or so books in the series and can't wait to get her hands on the rest. She has browbeaten her parents into reading the first few books as well, so I am now able to tell you that if you read these books, you will know a great deal about owls -- maybe more than you ever thought possible (or necessary).

The books -- at least the first few -- follow Soren, a young barn owl who has fallen from his nest in the forest. He is captured by some owls from an 'orphanage' called St. Aggie's, but this 'orphanage' has a sinister intent. With his friend Gylfie, an elf owl, Soren escapes St. Aggie's and sets off to find the Guardians of Ga'Hoole -- a legendary order of owls said to protect the weak, right wrongs, and do noble deeds.

The series is coming out in film September 24 and so far the stills and trailers look gorgeous. However, this is the same bunch that brought us Happy Feet, which didn't impress me a whole lot, so I am not getting my hopes up. I generally have low expectations for book-to-film adaptations.

What I like about the books is that they drove my daughter to ask so many questions -- what do sooty owls look like? How about burrowing owls? What does an owl pellet look like? What's inside it? Are there really blind nest snakes that take care of the owls' nests? (yes). Questioning, we know, is one of the habits of a good reader, so this was a very good thing. We spent several busy hours on the Internet satisfying her curiosity and building her understanding and knowledge into the bargain.

The other thing I liked was the size of the series -- 15 books are a God-send when you have a child that reads constantly. I spent the first half of the summer scrambling around trying to keep her supplied with books. After we found these, I could put my feet up and drink iced tea on the deck while I ate my bon-bons. Whew!

Already my daughter is begging to see the movie, so I am crossing my fingers that it's at least passably good. In the mean time, if you have a little nature lover who's between 8 and 12 years of age, you might want to give this series a try.

Magazines for Kids

Access to books is a critical aspect of cultural capital. But equally important is exposure to a range of texts and formats -- it allows children to transfer the skills they learn reading fiction to other mediums, and adapt them to works of different format and lengths.

Magazines are a great way to give kids experience with different kinds of texts -- poems, non-fiction articles, short stories, song lyrics.

Back in the stone age, when Bookivore was a kid, there was one magazine for kids: Highlights. That was it, folks. Now there is a veritable feast of magazines for children, some quite excellent, some just thinly-veiled advertisements for products, TV shows and movies. Highlights is still a favorite at our house: it's far more colorful than what it was when I was a kid, and nicely multicultural too, teaching about Diwali, Ramadan, Chinese New Year and a host of other cultural celebrations and traditions. The magazine works hard at promoting good values and good behavior, which it does this from a sense of fair play rather than from any particular belief system. It's a nice blend of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, comic strips and puzzles that appeals to kids from 3 to 10.


A nice addition to the Highlights stable is High Five, their magazine for 2-5 year olds. The text is much simpler, pictures are larger and fill the pages. It has the same focus on good morals, though the message is obviously greatly simplified. One lovely feature of both these magazines is no advertising.


I absolutely love these next three, put out by the National Wildlife Federation: Ranger Rick (at the top of this post) Your Big Backyard, and Wild Animal Baby.


Like the two Highlights magazines, the NWF's offerings are stepped for different age groups. Ranger Rick is for ages 7 and up, though for independent reading your child might need to be a little older. Your Big Backyard is for 3-7 year olds, and Wild Animal Baby is for 1-4 year olds.



One nice feature about Wild Animal Baby is that it comes in a board book format of heavier cardboard, rather than flimsy magazine pages. It's perfect for little hands to hold. The photography in all these magazines is fantastic and the range of articles is impressive -- whatever animals your little ones like, they'll show up eventually in these pages, one way or another. Another blessing: no ads to disrupt your reading.

National Geographic Kids is another one we get, but I would be lying if I said it was a favorite. It was a gift, otherwise I'd cancel my subscription. I find the layout overly busy and it's loaded with ads for candy and video games. Additionally, it contains feature articles on movies -- special effects, actor interviews, etc. Not strictly National Geographic stuff -- more along the lines of paid endorsements. In and among the plugs are some interesting articles about animal rescues, critter cams, and habitats, but it's pretty buried in junk. Ostensibly for 6-14 year olds, but I can't see kids sticking with it that long.

Another one for 2-6 year olds that gets good reviews is Ladybug. It's colorful and full of stories, poems. The publishers also have a magazine called Babybug, which is made of heavy stock like Wild Animal Baby. They also publish one called Click! which is geared more towards science and nature.

Of a similar nature is Spider, which is for 6-9 year olds. It includes stories, poems, articles and illustrations from around the world.

For older kids, there are magazines about science, like Odyssey.


And magazines about world history, like Calliope.


If you have a sports nut, Sports Illustrated for Kids might be a good choice. Parents rated this one very highly because it focuses on the positive achievements of athletes and their good sportsmanship, rather than on their questionable activities and sexual antics. One word of caution here would be that kids may assume the adult version of SI is okay because of their exposure to SIKids. Obviously the articles in SI are going to burst some bubbles, so that's something to consider.

Appleseeds is a magazine full of non-fiction and social studies articles for kids ages 7-9. Each issue covers a particular theme: Becoming President, Whiz Kids, Unusual Structures, Halloween. Rather a narrow age range, but the content makes it of use in giving kids experience with non-fiction text.

Ask is for 7-10 year olds covering science, inventions, recipes, web activities, projects, and other activities. Each issue is devoted to a particular theme -- water, camouflage, migration, the musical brain, etc.

Cricket has been around since the '70s and is another publication that celebrates fiction, though this time from established, even classical writers like Shakespeare, Robert Frost, Shel Silverstein, and Lloyd Alexander. It also includes games and puzzles. It's geared for 9-14 year olds.


This is really just a sampling. There are many more publications for kids, of varying quality: American Girl Magazine, Kids Discover, Boy's Life, Cobblestone, Girl's Life, Disney Princess, Dig, Nick Jr. Preschool Playroom. The list goes on and on.



Before subscribing, go to your library and see what these magazines offer -- look at several issues, if possible, to get a sense of the kind of content they regularly offer. Be leery of magazine that contain a lot of ads: they really will encourage your kids to pester you for Yogos, or whatever. And if the subscription prices seem too high, remember that magazine subscriptions make excellent birthday and Christmas gifts from Grandma and Grandpa. All of our subscriptions have been gifts and they are very much appreciated.

Images courtesy of Amazon.com and National Wildlife Federation

When You Reach Me

When You Reach Me is a book about surprises, but not necessarily the kind of suprises you'd expect, or even feel very comfortable with. Twelve-year-old Miranda lives in New York City with her single mom, she has a best-friend-since-babyhood in Sal, she likes her mom's boyfriend, she's content. And then, things start to fall apart.

First, there's a traumatic incident where Sal is hurt. After that, he refuses to see her. Their friendship, he tells her, is over. She has to explore new territory by navigating the world of girl friendships, something she's never bothered to do before. It's tricky. Then Miranda's apartment is broken into but nothing seems to have been stolen. Unsettling, weird. But not as weird as finding the notes.

The notes are unsigned and they tell her things that haven't happened yet. Are they from the future? Who is sending them? This mystery plays out against the backdrop of Miranda's normal, 'average' life -- the minefield of middle-school relationships, girl-rivalry, and tentative steps toward maturity. Somehow it's all linked together, but Miranda can't quite see how until a moment of utter clarity that comes to her at a taping of the $20,000 Pyramid.

Oh, I liked this book. I didn't realize it was the 2009 Newbery winner until I sat down to write this post, but having read it, I can see why it won. It resonated for me on so many levels, not least of which was the fact that the story takes place in 1979, when I myself was 13, so all Miranda's issues occur in a context that felt very familiar, right down to t-shirts with rainbows and Dick Clark hosting the Pyramid.

But beyond the middle-school stuff, it's got some elements of science fiction too: it's kind of like The Time Traveler's Wife Jr. -- there's some mind-blowing plot stuff that follows the same it-will-happen-because-it-already-has-happened logic. There are many references to Miranda's favorite book, the sci-fi children's classic A Wrinkle in Time, which adds more layers to the mystery. And when the mystery does become clear, it's one of those "ah-ha!" moments, closely followed by an "oh!" moment when you realize all the implications of what you've just realized.

Whew!

There's some mild swearing, a hell, a G-d, but nothing else, and although Miranda's mom has a boyfriend and there is prolonged discussion about whether he should be given a key to their apartment, things don't get more explicit than that and he never seems to sleep over. There's a little scene where Miranda imagines the evolution of man (which I remember still being taught in conjunction with creationism in 1979), but she's using it to try to gain some perspective on her troubles, not to hammer home any belief system.

It's middle school lit, it's sci-fi, it's tragedy, and yet it defies being placed in a narrow little category. Miranda's voice is compelling and the book ended up being a very fast read. It's good, people. Really good.

For 5th grade and up, maybe 4th grade although I think the subject matter might be a little over their heads. Seriously, don't miss this one.

Classic Monday: The Borrowers

The Borrowers, by Mary Norton, is about tiny people, no bigger than dollhouse dolls, who "borrow" from the Human Beans. In fact, they're sure that the Human Beans are put on the earth simply to provide for borrowers. But the borrowers in this novel have fallen on hard times -- all the many little folk who used to live in the great country house have had to leave (or 'emigrate,' as one of them puts it) either for lack of food to borrow or because the worst of all fates has befallen them: they've been 'seen.'

All that's left are Pod, his wife Homily, and their daughter Arietty. They manage to eke out a living on scraps from the kitchen and other things they scavenge from the rest of the house, all the while avoiding the Human Beans. Until one day when Pod, on a borrowing mission upstairs, is 'seen' by an unexpected house guest -- a boy, the owner's nephew, who has been sent into the country to recuperate from an illness.

Fearful that their lives will be up-ended beyond recall, Pod and Homily finally tell Arietty, who is 12, about borrowing, the Human Beans, the whole world above their little hidey-hole under the floor in the kitchen. Arietty, tired of living underground where it's always dark, begs to be allowed to go borrowing. Her parents at first refuse: girls don't borrow (the story, after all, takes place at the end of the Victorian period), but finally they relent because, they realize, if anything were to happen to them, Arietty would be quite alone and unable to take care of herself.

On her first foray into the world upstairs, Arietty is herself 'seen' by the same boy, and far from being afraid, she is emboldened and even more curious. What follows is the story of how their relationship does turn everything topsy-turvy and nearly costs the Borrowers their lives.

There is an implication in the book that some of the Human Beans over indulge in alcohol -- this is how they explain away the sightings of the little people. It's glancingly handled, and went right over my 8 year old's head, but it's there. Most of the characters who are supposed to be drinking too heavily (and thus seeing tiny people where they shouldn't) are fairly unappealing people -- an their supposed drinking is also treated as a failing, not glorified in any way.

This is a great book for a read-aloud. The language is a little more formal than kids will be used to -- a product of an earlier era, but easy enough for an adult to navigate. Books like this really tune the ear do different rhythms and expose children to different syntax (word order) and sentence structures, all of which build cultural capital which will be important as they move up the grades.

More than that, it's a great story. If your child loved The Littles chapter book series, or has a thing for fairies, give this one a try. Much of the tiny-creature appeal is here as well, but on a more sophisticated level.

Scientists in the Field

Every so often, I run across a series that just wows me. Scientists in the Field is just such a series. These are rich books -- full of scientific and natural information, as well as information about scientific process.




The series, which is published by Houghten Mifflin Harcourt, has about 15 books in it. It's hard to get an exact number because Houghten Mifflin Harcourt's website doesn't list all their titles and a search by series title on Barnes and Noble or Amazon doesn't bring up all the titles. But, suffice it to say that there are quite a few of them and they are diverse enough to appeal to a wide range of interests.

There were so many possiblilities for us to check out. Tree Kangaroos --so sweet! This was a nice one about the difficulties in tracking this very shy and elusive animal. Stunning photography, too.

Like frogs? Here's one for you that will tell you tons of cool stuff about frogs and how scientists study them.

Here's one for older kids. It's a little more abstract, but highly interesting. If you have an 8-12 year old who is studying pollution or the ocean, this would be a good one.

Now, you may be wondering whether Bookivore has read all of these. The answer is no. I let my children pick one from the library and the one they picked was this:

They did this on purpose because they know I hate spiders and they think it's funny to make me read books to them about spiders. ESPECIALLY books with pictures like this:

Oh my. What I have to do when I read stuff like this is keep my eyes on the text and pretend the other stuff just isn't there. BUT, I will say that the scientific information was so interesting, and so well presented, that I was completely reeled in, in spite of my severe arachnophobia.

The book profiled an Arachnologist from Hiram University in Ohio as he traveled through French Guiana in search of Goliath Birdeater Tarantulas. Not just spiders -- big, hairy spiders. There was lots of detail about how scientists ask questions and frame experiments and I found myself kind of fascinated. I didn't know that spiders molt -- shed their skins -- and that this is kind of a delicate and dangerous procedure for them. Do I enjoy looking at molted spider skins as pictured in the book? No. But it was interesting to learn about it.

If spiders aren't your thing, there are thankfully many other options. Whales, for example. Whales I can really get into.

Or maybe the Great Apes. Love Gorillas.

Yikes! More bugs. Why do people let them crawl on their faces? Makes me shiver. However, this is just the kind of gross-out factor that appeals to my almost-7-year-old son, so this one will be coming home with us soon.

I am not particularly freaked out by snakes, but some people are. These books are loaded with photographs, many of them close ups, so if you tend to flip around snakes, you might want to avoid this one.

It's got pictures in it like this:

The range of interests and habitats is impressive -- there are even books about searching for extra terrestrials and anthropology -- the study of human groups. I find the whole idea of learning about what specific scientists do a refreshing change from all the books we've read about animal species.

The age range for this series is listed as 8-12, and it would be that for independent reading, but my 6 and a half year old was riveted by the tarantula book, which I read aloud. My 8 year old could have read it easily herself.

We borrowed the hardcovers, but they are available in paperback. The hardcovers are $15, the paperbacks are $8. I think they'd be a valuable supplement to a homeschool science curriculum.

They are anywhere from 60-80 pages in length and at the back they include glossaries of the terms used (waaaaayy more spider terms and factoids than I ever wanted to know. I now know what pedipalps are and that spider fangs are white like walrus tusks after they molt --bleah).

These could also be used in the summer as a way to keep those little brain cells working. The way the information is presented really gives kids a model to follow in testing their own hypotheses. They could be used in conjunction with nature hikes or other outdoor experiences. If you're brave, you could let them study spiders in a jar. Or snakes. Or frogs.

We will continue to check these out of our library (because why would I want to own a huge, hairy spider book?). A truly wonderful series -- go give 'em a try.

All pictures courtesy of BarnesandNoble.com

Shiver

Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater, is going to remind you of Twilight. The comparisons between the two are inescapable: the whole star-crossed, girl-meets-supernatural-boy thing is just too similar. But where Twilight shows a certain restraint, Shiver's characters don't remain as chaste.

Grace was attacked by wolves as a little girl -- pulled from her tire swing and dragged into the woods, she should have died. Somehow she didn't, and now she has an obsessive interest in wolves...in one particular wolf with yellow eyes.

After a classmate is killed by wolves, hunters enter the woods to exterminate the pack. Grace, terrified that something might happen to "her" wolf, manages to stop the hunt, but not before one of the wolves is shot. Arriving home, she discovers a boy on her deck, covered in blood and obviously suffering from a gunshot wound. He has yellow eyes. Somehow she knows that he is her wolf.

It is love at first sight, or at least at first human sight since all their prior contact has been inter-species. Sam moves in with Grace (her parents aren't very parental: they spend all their time acting like they don't have a child and don't notice that Sam is staying in their home, despite the fact that he lives there for more than a month).

Cold, it turns out, is what changes the werewolves into wolves. The colder the weather, the closer they get to changing until at last they change for the winter and don't become human again until spring. And eventually, they don't change back at all, living out the rest of their lives as wolves. It becomes critical for Sam to stay warm: he is close to changing and is certain that this will be his last year -- after he changes this time, he will not be human again.

The central mystery of the book is whether there's a cure for this ailment. Grace was bitten during her attack as a child, yet has never changed. She appears to have increased sensory awareness -- her wolf sense -- but she stays Grace. How is this possible? What implications are there for Sam?

Some of the writing is lyrical. It draws heavily on poetry -- Sam is a songwriter and the loss of his self-awareness when he becomes a wolf is devastating to him. He is forced by his nature as a werewolf to live in the moment. Grace, on the other hand, is hyper-responsible, a planner, and her practicality in the face of her parents' immaturity is another theme that's well handled. Their different approaches to this problem of Sam's wolfishness are part of what makes the book work.

Where Twilight spends three full books on the "I want you-But we mustn't!" tug of war, Shiver only draws out the suspense for about 2/3rds of the novel before Sam and Grace sleep together. I have a problem with that, given that this is targeted at 13-18 year olds. Granted, they are supposed to be soul-mates (wolves, you may remember, mate for life), and it's not explicit, but still, Grace is only 16 or 17. Shiver's language is also rougher; more OMGs, a "bitch" or two, and one reference to "ass-kicking boots." It's relatively tame compared to the way actual high school students talk, and not at all gratuitous, but it's there.

The ending really got me, mainly because it wasn't well explained. I found myself closing the book and thinking, "How did that happen?" I think I have made peace with it in my head, but to say that it's clear would be grossly misleading. Perhaps this is going to be explained in the sequel Linger, due out this summer (2010).

Shiver has some nice bits -- the poetry, Sam's agony as he anticipates losing himself and Grace, perhaps forever, the way weather intrudes in and shapes the story. But I wouldn't recommend it for kids under 16, because of the sexual relationship.

And seriously consider reading this one under a blanket, because the constant references to the cold start to get to you after a while.

Invisible Detective

The Invisible Detective, by Justin Richards, is a series billed for 5th to 8th graders with mystery and adventure and a dose of the paranormal thrown in for good measure.


It's not new -- book 1, The Paranormal Puppet Show (which goes by Double Life in the U.S.) was published in the UK in 2003 -- but it hasn't been heavily promoted in the U.S. and that's a shame because these are really excellent books.

The stories center around a group of children in 1936 London; Meg whose father knocks her and her mother around, Flinch, who has no family and lives on the street, Jonny, who is undersized and bullied, and Arthur Drake, the 14 year old son of a Scotland Yard detective. Together they have become the Cannoniers, the leg-men for a mysterious character known as the Invisible Detective. The book reveals right away that there is no Invisible Detective -- it's Art and his friends, solving minor mysteries and answering questions for the people of the community. Suddenly, though, they find themselves caught up in a real mystery, and one that threatens to be much bigger than they bargained for.



An odd exhibition has come to Cannon Street -- a warehouse filled with automatons which look eerily like people who have been reported missing in the community. Coincidence? The children aren't sure, but there is certainly something sinister going on, if only they could figure out what it is.


At the same time, there's a parallel story from 2003; Another Arthur Drake, this one thoroughly modern, stumbles into a shop one day and discovers the casebook of the Invisible Detective. Funny thing is, the whole notebook is in Art's handwriting. He becomes obsessed with figuring out who the Invisible Detective was, and how he himself seems to "remember" things he wasn't even alive to experience.


The story is full of action, creepy, but pleasantly so, and the characters are likeable. The historical period is one which American kids aren't going to be familiar with -- it concerns the abdication of Edward VIII so he could marry Wallis Simpson, and Hitler re-arming Germany prior to the start of WWII -- but the events are pretty well explained for readers.



I think this one could be for kids even older than 8th grade, certainly at least through 9th grade, and possibly even through 11th. I wouldn't go much younger than 5th grade, as it might be a little scary, a little violent (people do get killed, though all the violence is at the end and is not graphic at all) for younger kids and the complexity of the language is better for middle school and older.

This is a series that deserves a wider audience in the U.S. It's good literature for kids, thoughtful, exciting, full of kids with integrity trying to do good things, a solid mystery, and a second, even more tantalizing mystery about Art himself. There are 8 books in the series -- go check them out from your public library.

Classic Monday: Caddie Woodlawn

Some stories from my childhood stand out very clearly from the huge mass of literature I absorbed between 2nd and 12th grade. Caddie Woodlawn, by Carol Ryrie Brink, is one that sparkles in my memory.

Often the books we loved don't always survive the test of an adult reading, but Caddie leapt from the pages as fresh and spirited as she was when I first read her 30 years ago (and yes, just writing that makes me cringe -- 30 years!) I liked Laura Ingalls, but I wanted to be Caddie.

Her life was so much more exciting than mine, running wild as she did all over the woods of Wisconsin with her brothers. I envied her the thrill of riding through the night to warn the Indian village of an impending attack -- I envied her all the adventures she and her brothers cooked up. She was forever doing boy things instead of sitting at home sewing. Mind you, though I wasn't sitting home stitching samplers, I am old enough to remember when girls couldn't play little league (or a lot of other sports) and when we were shunted into home-ec classes whether we wanted to take them or not, so the theme of boy-destiny vs. girl-destiny was one I could relate to.

The language of Caddie Woodlawn is more complex than her sister books, the Little House on the Prairie series, so if you have a reader who loved Laura and Mary et al., this would be a good step up to extend vocabulary and comprehension. It's also a good one if your daughter likes the American Girl books, particularly if she likes Kirsten or Kaya, since the time periods are about the same. Caddie is somewhat more accessible than Little House, I think because there is less that needs to be explained to modern children (read a Little House book and you will find yourself explaining all sorts of things -- butter churns, sod houses, plowing, calico, nose-bags, etc.) But also because Caddie herself is more accessible. Her spunk, her fearlessness, her confusion as she tries to reconcile her tomboy ways with approaching womanhood is one that many girls can relate to, however many opportunities are available to them today. And everyone can relate to the incident with Cousin Annabelle's buttons -- who hasn't done something to be funny and ended up going a little too far?

Other nice touches are Caddie's relationship with her father and brothers and her emerging relationship with her younger sister Hetty and ultimately her mother. The choice her father must make -- whether to return to England and take up the inheritance he is entitled to or stay in America -- is another element that lends depth to the story as Caddie empathizes with her father's younger self. Her developing empathy for others is a theme of the book; in an earlier chapter she chooses to spend a treasured dollar on three little boys who have lost their mother. There is rich food for discussion here -- bigotry, fear of differentness, the nature of compassion, taking action to right a wrong, family relationships -- all are dealt with in these pages and provide wonderful opportunities to talk to your child (and build some critical thinking skills into the bargain).

I would suggest reading Caddie Woodlawn aloud to your child, unless she's a very strong reader. It is a touch slow starting, so it helps to have an adult read the first chapter or two (or even the whole book) to pick up the cadence and rhythm of Brink's writing. Children can always understand more difficult literature when it is read to them, and having more difficult books read to them lays the groundwork for reading such literature by themselves later on. I think there's enough adventure and boy-stuff here that boys would be okay with this book, but since the main character is a girl, it's a fair bet most boys will pass this one by. However, if you have a son and daughter who are close in age, this would make a good family read-aloud book, too.

Like Laura Ingalls Wilder, Caddie Woodlawn was a real person (she was Brink's grandmother) and her story is worth reading again today, both to see how the lives of girls in America have changed, and how at their most basic levels they have stayed the same.

The Lightning Thief: Now a Major Motion Picture

"Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.

If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.

But if you recognize yourself in these pages -- if you feel something stirring inside -- stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.

Don't say I didn't warn you."

So opens the first chapter of The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan. The Lightning Thief has been out since 2005, so it isn't new, but a host of children who were too young to read it when it was initially released may be draw to it once the movie comes out on February 12.


The premise of the story is that Percy Jackson is a demigod--half human, half Olympian god. This makes him a target for every "mythical" monster ever thrown out by Greek Mythology. At the beginning of the story, he is unaware of his parentage. Severely ADD and dyslexic, he's been thrown out of every school he's ever attended, usually because of some bizarre incident that lands him in trouble. Finally sent to a school for troubled kids in upstate New York, Percy is on his last chance -- if he's thrown out of Yancy Academy, who knows where he'll go next?




On a class field trip, his pre-algebra teacher morphs into a hideous monster bent on killing Percy. With some assistance from his Latin teacher, Percy manages to vaporize her with a magical sword. After this incident, no one seems to have noticed a thing. Percy knows something is going on, but can't even begin to fathom what. Returning home, he learns from his mother that his father was Poseidon, god of the sea. Once he knows who he is, he becomes the focus for more monsters, and is pursued all the way to Camp Half-Blood, a camp for demigods on Long Island. Here he meets Annabeth, a daughter of Athena, and Luke, son of Hermes, and learns the legend of Thalia's pine tree, which guards the camp from monsters.

The rest of the book is a romp: loads of action, lots of monsters turning up here and there, a quest to recover Zeus' Master Bolt, a secret prophecy involving a child of the Big Three (Zeus, Poseidon, Hades), and a plot to overthrow Olympus which will be the foundation for the rest of the series. Riordan has a gift for humor; Percy is wry and funny and fatalistic -- the characters often find irony in whatever bizarre situations they're confronted with. They're fast, entertaining reads and will appeal to boys and girls alike.

These are books for 9-14 year olds -- Percy is 11 when the series begins, and like Harry Potter, he ages a year with each new book. The books assume the existence of the Olympian gods, and while they don't go into any specifics, the promiscuity of those gods is a central theme. If you studied mythology in high school, you know that the Greek gods seldom resisted a pretty face; Greek myths are littered with their illegitimate children. Since most of the gods were also married, all of these connections are adulterous, though the book doesn't really comment on their morality (or lack thereof). There is perhaps a tacit commentary in that one of the themes running through the entire series is that of demigods who don't know their parentage because their immortal parent hasn't claimed them. This is always presented as a painful thing, which is as it should be.

Much of the Greek mythology is going to go over most kids' heads. Since I taught mythology, I thoroughly enjoyed how Riordan managed to bring many of the mythological characters into the present day -- I particularly liked "Auntie M's," the burger joint and statue shop -- what a great way to use Medusa (who, you will remember, turned people into stone with her hideous face). Here, she lures them in with greasy burgers and fries and then asks to "take their picture." She is heavily veiled to hide her face, but the kids assume she's Middle Eastern. Brilliant.


Each subsequent book does much the same thing, updating Greek myths for the modern world. In book 3, we learn that the sea of monsters travelled by Odysseus has been relocated in the modern world to the Bermuda Triangle -- so that's why all those ships keep disappearing! Circe runs a spa island and now turns men into guinea pigs instead of pigs ("so much cleaner!"). Olympus is now on the 600th floor of the Empire State Building.



Most of the characters use the phrase "Oh my gods!" and there are a few "butts" here and there. The characters, especially in later books, are depicted as dating each other, but there's nothing more explicit than some hand holding and a chaste kiss or two. There's lots of monster-slaying, but since the monsters only crumble into dust, the violence is somewhat softened. In later books, demigods are killed and the emotional tone of the story is cranked up a notch or two.

I enjoyed these books tremendously. When I re-read them for this post, I was struck all over again by how funny they are and how well paced for middle schoolers. I do think they're not for kids under 9, mainly because of the implied promiscuity and the violence, however mitigated. Also, I think you may find yourself embroiled in a discussion of values and beliefs after reading these books, and this is okay: it provides an opportunity to talk about what some cultures believed and how it affected their behavior and what the fallout for everyone was.

The great thing about movies now is how stunningly they can render worlds which previously could only live in the mind. The magic of CGI has made kingdoms like Middle Earth and fabulous places like Hogwarts spring to vivid life. But the very real danger of movies like these is that kids will only see the film and leave the books -- often very good books -- languishing on the shelf. I hope the movie attracts more readers, but if you think your child might abandon the book for the movie, you might want to encourage the reading before the viewing.