4/14/2016
"Once Upon A Cloud" by Claire Keane
Copyright 2015, 40 pages
Fantasy

Image taken from Goodreads

So Claire Keane is the visual development artist behind our beloved Disney movies Tangled, Frozen, and Wreck-it-Ralph. I don't love Frozen, I enjoy Wreck-it-Ralph, but Tangled I'm especially in love with. While Keane was responsible for visual development for the entire movie, her direct work can be seen in Rapunzel's mural in her tower home (http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Claire_Keane). After reading that fact, I decided that I must live to see the person who pulled the strings behind my favorite Disney movie whipping up a children's book. And so, meet Once Upon A Cloud.

Right off the bat, we can immediately see that this picture book is Disney-flavored. They don't even attempt to hide the iconic castle behind the word "cloud". Fortunately, "Disney-flavored" means beautiful illustrations with a blend of the most gorgeous colors. Unfortunately, "Disney-flavored" can also mean a minimal story line. There really is no depth in the story whatsoever. Celeste wants to find the perfect gift for her mom, and she had a dream of meeting the Star (who are princesses), the Moon (who reads a lot), and the Sun (who is also a princess). And then she woke up and decided that the "perfect gift" are three kinds of wild flowers bound together with a hair tie. Because each one, apparently, represented the celestial objects she met in her dreams. How heart-warming.

In Goodreads, this book mostly receives mixed reviews. Those who give positive reviews highlighted the illustrations (and they ARE gorgeous), while those who give negative reviews condemned the emptiness of the plot. In all honesty I cannot decide which way to go. I love the illustrations. There's so much color going on. Vibrant, pastel colors that are still bright even if it's supposed to illustrate a pitch black night sky. Perhaps because it's a happy dream. Perhaps because it's a dream - and unless we see glitters and sparkles flying about we won't ever guess. And then the Sun comes about, and the whole light pink-dark purple color scheme (oh, what else) switches to a burning orange. I just love it. There's very little way to not get enchanted by the pictures. Oh and of course, that little nameless yellow Chihuahua always made me squeal.

On the other hand however, as I already pointed out, there really is nothing valuable within the text. It's a book worth looking at, not one worth reading. Does that mean this is a good book? Honestly, I don't know. I did not find this book in the Disney Wikia page I linked above. A friend of mine sat next to a ten-year old girl in a supermarket. She (my friend) knew that I was looking for book titles to read and review, so she asked the young girl if she has a favorite book. She does. It's Once Upon A Cloud. With that, I don't feel justified to drop the verdict. I can certainly see why that young lady found this book appealing. However, if someone asked me which book would I want to read to my young cousins back home, I would pick anything but this one.

4/14/2016
"Finding Winnie: The True Story of The World's Most Famous Bear" by Lindsay Mattick
Copyright 2015, 56 pages
Nonfiction, biography

Image taken from Goodreads

The moment I saw this picture book I know I want to read it. Winnie-the-Pooh is one of the first characters that taught me English. I grew up reading and watching the tales of the Hundred Acres Wood. If there was no Winnie-the-Pooh, I wouldn't be sitting here writing this blog today. If there was no Winnie, there will never be Winnie-the-Pooh. And so, naturally, I must know about this little baby black bear.

First off, I noticed that people made a huge fuss about how Winnie was a female. Truth be told, I never pictured Winnie-the-Pooh to be a male or female character. The character design and clothing was pretty gender-neutral to me. So is the adorable, unique voice. But in A. A Milne's first Winnie-the-Pooh book, I noticed that Christopher Robin initially named his stuffed toy "Edward Bear". And so when the name changes, I suppose people don't presume the gender changes as well. Either way, I care little whether Winnie-the-Pooh is a he or a she. The sudden confirmation that "he" is supposedly (?) a "she" did not alter the world-famous series one bit. Boy or girl, Pooh would still love eating honey, and say "oh, bother" every so often. Boy or girl, Pooh would still be that one figure that taught me how to not spell "honey". End of story.

Second off, I like how we had no clue that Mattick was Harry Colebourn's great-granddaughter right until the end. I like surprises. I'm pretty easy to please. Just give me an adorable little bear with big ears, a quote about future occupation from a young child ("that's what I will maybe be when I'm big!"), a reference to my first non-human English teacher, a little twist in the story - and you've got me. I will now shower this book with praises.

As I already noted, Winnie's illustration is so very adorable. I love her round big ears, and her two little eyes. She also grew slightly larger from page to page, barely noticeable, until finally we see Christopher Robin riding on her back. I always love it when artists give a lot of attention to detail. Partly because I can't draw, and partly because I know it must be a lot of work. I also like Mattick's approach in narration. She italicized the parts where she's conversing with Cole - zooming out of the tale for a short while - and left the rest of the story in normal font. It's different. I also find it as an invitation for parents to read the book aloud to (or together with) their children - which is always good.

4/14/2016
"Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes
Copyright 1966, 311 pages
Realistic Fiction

Image taken from Goodreads

I'll be honest: I ran out of titles. So I opened a thread in one of my online communities asking for young adult book suggestions. Out of all the titles thrown at me, I just randomly pick one that: A) I haven't read yet, and B) sounds interesting. The fact that I ended up with Flowers for Algernon probably shows the demographic of the people I hang out with.

Anyway.

Despite being a beloved classic, I have genuinely never even heard of this title until someone brought it up. I'm drawn to any book that has something to do with psychology, mental illness or depression. Plus, this one has a cute little white mouse. So Flowers it is. I'm glad I picked up this book. I didn't expect much of it when I first started reading, honestly. But as the story goes by, I realize that there's a whole lot of attention to detail from Keyes. I don't know if other people notice, but I definitely notice how all the spelling mistakes Charlie made at the first page he also made on the last page. At the same time, the way Charlie s-l-o-w-l-y climbed up his pyramid of intelligence is the exact same way he climbed down. I love all the subtle changes. So subtle, sometimes I didn't even catch that Charlie has progressed or regressed (again).

I'm not in Special Education. So I can't make too many comments on Charlie's condition and how he's supposed to be educated. But I have been in several Special Ed schools or classrooms. All the crude, hurtful terms used in the book and how everyone - including the honorable scientists in the convention, for goodness sake - treated Charlie as if he's a mindless lab rat made me pull out a comparison chart in my head. Have we improved?

Surely, we don't tolerate calling people with intellectual disability "morons" or "dumb" anymore. But have we treated them differently? Sure, there's Least Restrictive Environment going on. Sure, there's such thing as a Special Education teachers. But have we stopped staring two seconds longer than we should? Have we stopped laughing? Have we stopped demanding them to be someone they're not?

I swear I thought Charlie would discuss whether or not he feels his experiment is moral or "right". But he didn't, and it annoyed me a whole lot. We did see, however, that he developed a brand new research so a better experiment can one day take place. His goal was to "smart-ify" thousands upon thousands of others with intellectual disability. But was that the right thing to do? Do we really need to surgically increase brain function on all these people to the point of ingenuity? Alright, maybe not to the point of an 185 IQ (which is off the charts, by the way, because "genius" is 160+). But the question stands: how moral is it to cut open someone's head and just make them "smart" - because there is no place for challenged people in the world. What about non challenged people, then? Non challenged people with the "average" 100-114 IQ. Do they need surgery too? Because all those thousands upon thousands are geniuses now? How important is intelligence really? How do we know that above average IQ is a good thing anyway? There are three quotients now - IQ, EQ, and SQ. Do we need an off-the-charts score for all three, too?

I think Charlie answered us by showing his short-lived affair with Fay and Alice. It doesn't matter that he has all the knowledge in the world if he doesn't have anyone to love and love him back. But like I said: I swear I thought Charlie would discuss whether or not his experiment was right. I feel like that part of the novel was just evading the hard question - or just the question I'm interested in. There was also this brief discussion about God's existence - which Charlie also artfully evaded. He glossed over it a little bit, but then never brought it  up again. It annoyed me. The last page left this itch to know what does Charlie think about all these questions.

But other than that, if it's not yet obvious, I love this book. I always love books that make you think twice, or shows you how does a world look like from someone else's eyes. Someone else whose opinion you never thought to be important until now. Flowers is totally that book.

4/13/2016
"On The Trail with Lewis and Clark" by Judy Lechner
Copyright 2004, 16 pages
Informational

Image taken from Goodreads

I found this book in the Maths section in the library. But as the title shows, this book helps children learn more than just Maths. I don't know if the sub-header is a little too small on the cover photo, but in case it is, it says: "learning to use line graphs". And that's what this book is technically all about. Every other page we convert a chunk of Lewis and Clark's story (the number of days they spent on a certain place, etc) into a line graph - with minimal data for easier reading. Under the ready-made line graph we see one or two short questions that invite children to learn decoding the line graph. Since this is about Lewis and Clark, there's no avoiding history in this book. We learn about Sacagawea, who exactly are these Lewis and Clark, what are they doing walking around Louisiana and why. What I did not expect, however, is the fact that some big words - non Math words like decision - were highlighted and listed on the back. So there's reason to argue that readers learn a little bit of Language-Arts as well. While this three-in-one approach is not at all bad, I do think it left the meat of the lesson (the line graphs) a little out of focus. I don't know if I'm expecting too much out of this book's intended audience, but if we're already talking about reading line graphs, shouldn't we talk about drawing one as well? The practice questions should get repetitive over time in the eyes of a nine-year old. After a while they'll just focus more on the story and skip the line graph pages altogether. What about - by page 5 or so - we leave them a blank line graph template and a set of data? And then by the last page, we leave them a completely blank page with a data set and a reminder to flip back if they forgot something. What about that? That's more "line graph"-y doesn't it? Even further: what about introducing them a little bit about what goes into the X axis and what goes into the Y axis? Which one is the X axis and which one is the Y axis? What about bringing these graphs a little closer to the Math world - by showing them the full-on Cartesian diagram? Students don't need to interact with the graph at all, of course, but at least they know what it looks like and what it's called. I found this book in the library of a K-3 school so I do assume this book is meant for that age group. But still, I feel like there's so much more we can do with line graphs than just showing a finished graph and asking them to find a point.

4/9/2016
"We Wanted You" by Liz Rosenberg
Copyright 2002, 32 pages
Realistic Fiction

Image taken from Goodreads

I didn't know what this book was all about until I picked it up. The title was pretty discreet, and you can't really tell it's about adopting a child from a different ethnicity until you actually start reading. I do love this book, though. I love how it shows how adoptive parents love their children just as much as biological parents do, without overglorifying the fact that this is about adopting a non-white child. We see nothing in the text that says things like: "we picked you up from (insert country name) and brought you to (insert country name)" or "you are (ethnicity name) and we are (ethnicity name) but it doesn't matter!". Instead, in the illustrations, we see a birthday banner that says: "Happy Birthday, Enriqué!" - implying that the child is probably Latino. Also by illustrations, we see that the parents are white. Those are about the only clues we have regarding race and ethnicity. No text in the book made a big deal out of it.

Another thing I like is the illustration. There's so many intricate details. Even on the cover page alone, we can assume that the dad is planning to surprise Enriqué with the soccer ball behind his back. Judging by Enrique's clothes, it seems like he does like soccer quite a bit. I also like how there are so many layers to each color in the picture. The shadows on the walls indicate that they're standing in a cool porch on a bright, sunny day. The wooden walls remind me of a holiday cottage, further enforcing the "relaxed, carefree" feel. Even the antique-shaped house number on the left gave off that feel: a happy little family in a happy little house.

4/9/2016
"The Patchwork Quilt" by Valerie Flournoy
Copyright 1985, 32 pages
Realistic Fiction

Picture taken from Scholastic

I chose this book because I recognized the illustrator. Jerry Pinkney makes the most realistic-looking watercolor paintings. I love, love how the quilt looked. It must be a lot of work to make different patterns in each little box that all must blend together. I like how the people turned out, too. Tanya didn't look overly short to show her age, and her clothing aren't super childish either. On the cover she's wearing a long blue jeans, and a yellow polo shirt. We don't see her wearing a pink ruffled dress with flowers all over, or a big red bow on her hair. I don't know how little girls dress in 1985, but she looks pretty modern to me. Grandma is the same way. Yes, her hair is gray, and yes, we see some facial features that indicate age. But her hair is not comically white as if someone bleached it, and she doesn't have scary droopy eyes or crumbling teeth like the evil witch in Snow White (and I mean the original 1937 version, not Charlize Theron). Aside from physical features, I also like how Grandma wasn't depicted to be frail, confused or helpless. She's actually a strong figure that still decides things for herself. I was worried if the story is going to spin to a tear-jerker when Grandma fell ill, but I'm glad she recovered. I can almost feel how close Tanya's family is through this story, so I'm glad they got a happy ending.

As for the quilt itself, I like how Tanya's mom changed her opinion from considering it trash at first, to a collage of memories. There's also a sense of "appreciate little things" in the story, which in my opinion is an important lesson. I don't know how many grandmas - or anyone - still make quilts these days. But it sounds like it makes a great, meaningful gift. Maybe I should pick it up sometime.

4/9/2016
"The Nowhere Box" by Sam Zuppardi
Copyright 2013,
Realistic Fiction

Image taken from Google

I don't have two little brothers, but I do have one. Growing up, I certainly remember him following me around like a duckling. I don't remember anymore if I ever got as annoyed as George, but I can sympathize with his attempt to "run away". I think it's great that we have a book about playing alone as well as playing with siblings (or friends). Books I read seem to like to depict kids who play alone as kids who are lonely, sad, or lacking social skills. But sometimes, especially when your little brothers are driving you up the wall, alone time is what you need. All it takes is a random object, a boat load of imagination, and off to Nowhere you go. However, midway through the book, we see that George actually missed his brothers. And then he time-traveled back home to find them - until the next time he needs to go Nowhere again.

I feel like this is one of those books most can easily relate to - children and adults alike. Even the drawing style is relate-able. The thin, rubber-like arms, the three-fingered hands, the stick-like legs, the humongous mouth, the dot-shaped eyes... I don't know about you guys, but that's my drawing when I was seven. Not that much has changed now. The buttons in the washing machine box are also very "realistic". In the sense that it's scrawly, sloppy, and none of the circles are actually round. Point is: the design makes it look like a fellow seven-year old is illustrating the book. The colors may be a little more complicated with all those shades and layers, but I like how it's bold, vibrant, and mostly involves the basic red-blue-yellow-green scheme instead of soft pastel colors. I also like how all the pictures are outlined in a thin, gray line (looks like a pencil) instead of a bold, black, formal, professional one. In my eyes, it gives off a stronger "this is a children's work" feel that way.

4/4/2016
"Marley & Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog" by John Grogan
Copyright 2005, 291 pages
Nonfiction, memoir

Picture taken from Goodreads

One word: classic. I mainly chose this book because there's no way I would ever forget about it. With other books, even ones I enjoyed just as much, after the years go by the little details would begin to blend and blur. Sometimes even the plot would start missing some pieces in memory. There's no way I'd be able to sit down and talk about those other books without re-reading it from start to finish. With Marley & Me, I don't even think it's possible to forget. I can still even recite Marley's antiques from jumping, walking in two legs on the pavement with his two other legs inside the car, swallowing a gold necklace, dragging a restaurant table across the street and... you get the point. I read this book back in 2008 or so, and it burned at the back of my mind. But then again, I'm a huge animal lover. I dedicated five years - now six - to study, research, observe and discuss canine behavior, psychology and training. I spoke to and learn from breeders, behaviorists and regular owners around the world. I'm also pretty involved in animal welfare movements, and always made sure to donate a little something to local shelters at least every year. Oh and on top of all: I'm a proud dog mama.

In short: I'm either you, or someone you know.

ASPCA estimates that 37-47% of American households have dogs. That's somewhere between 70-80 million dogs - excluding the ones still waiting to be bought or adopted. Do these people love their dogs as much as The Grogans love Marley, there's no measure of that. But my point is: this book is right up the alley to a whole lot of people (at least in America). That's probably a huge - if not the only - reason why it's a big hit. Don't get me wrong: I love Grogan's writing. You can tell he's a talented author. I love his detailed retelling of each one event in his life with Marley. To his credit, this book did make me laugh, reminisce, nod in sympathy, and - at the very end - cry my eyes out. But now that I step back and think about it, it's sort of an "empty" book. Like those teenage novels about having a crush who's way more popular than you, and then ending up with a childhood friend instead. I mean, it's a beautiful tribute to a wonderful companion, but I did not learn anything reading it. If there's even any message to take away, readers have to really dig deep and think it through. Same goes with those teenage novels I stuffed my brain with when I was thirteen. It's not 100% void of meaning or life lessons, but it's not exactly teaching me anything valuable either. It's a story that I can relate to. Period. But still, Grogan's writing is not half bad. So we all came to some sort of an unspoken, unanimous agreement that "everyone loves Marley & Me". And all is well.

Until the movie came out.

In 2008, David Frankel released a movie adaptation with the exact same title on Christmas day. The movie set a record for the largest Christmas day box office "ever" with $14.75 million in ticket sales (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marley_%26_Me_%28film%29). So it seems like people really do love Marley. However, I suppose as we all know, they don't like the movie. As reflected in its reviews and ratings, Marley & Me didn't gather as much praise as the novel did. The highest rating it got was 7.1/10 in IMDb, and that's already generous seeing as Rotten Tomatoes only gave it 63% - an average of 6/10 rating from 138 reviews. If I could borrow a movie critic's words, Todd McCarthy from Variety - in my opinion - sums it all up real well: "as broad and obvious as it could be, but delivers on its own terms thanks to sparky chemistry between its sunny blond stars, Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston, and the unabashed emotion-milking of the final reel. Fox has a winner here, likely to be irresistible to almost everyone but cats". I watched the movie twice myself. Once in 2009, once more in around 2012. I adopted my dog in 2010. When I watched it the first time, I walked away from the TV screen completely puzzled. "That is not at all the novel I read!" I thought. But then, I realize that it is. I hated the movie because it is exactly the novel: word by word, chapter to chapter. When we remove the imagery, word choice, attention to detail and writing style, all that's left is a chain of things that simply happened. Not things that bring light into important unpopular topics, things that broke a common misconception or stereotype, or even things that made us step back and think. They simply happened. They also simply happened in the book, but there were a lot more to it when there are words to paint the picture. In a motion picture, again, it simply happened.

The scene where Marley got an entire beach closed down was an example. In the book, we get a great detail from John's perspective. About how he was just sitting there enjoying the scenery when another dog owner near him yelled: "HEY! Watch your dog!" and he saw Marley squatting right in the middle of the water. There was this tickling description of how Marley looked up, "as if he's saying a prayer", as John raced from his end of the beach to the shallow waters. And as John finally stood next to his dog, poop bag in his hands, he found that Marley had diarrhea. He apologized, under the pressure of a ton of displeased dog owners, and the beach was closed off. I still giggle writing that, as I did reading that years and years ago. In the movie, that same scene was very dry. The sun is shining, the waters calm, and a girl in bikini half-heartedly yelled the "watch your dog" part. John sprung up from where he's sitting and raced to the water, yelling out "Marley! Marley!", and then there's this loud comical fart noise. The people leave, John collected Marley, and he left too. That's all. I can also write a lengthy paragraph about the dog training class scene, but it's basically the same thing: there's no thrill left to it in motion picture.

However, when the same movie came up on TV in 2012, I had to leave nearing the last scene. I already know what the last scene is like, and I know *this time* I'm surely gonna cry. I still hate the movie. But watching it as a dog owner, I became emotionally invested. I might even tolerate the plot's dryness a little bit just because the scenes made me nod a little more, smile a little more, and cry a little more. Not because I'm seeing good cinematography. I'm just seeing myself, and that's kind of what I want to see in movies. All in all, I would still recommend the novel to friends if they're looking for a light, fun read. But if anyone asks, I would still say it should have never been made into a movie. 

4/1/2016
"Last Stop of Market Street" by Matt de la Peña
Copyright 2016, 32 pages
Realistic Fiction

Cover image taken from Goodreads

First of all, the illustrations are adorable. I love the simple shapes, the bright colors, and the cartoonish-but-still-human-like characters. I also like how it represents quite a bit of underrepresented people. My favorite is the guy with tattoos in the bus. We totally don't see a lot of those in children's books even if in real life we see tattooed people in a daily basis. There's also the blind man with his guide dog. How many of these people we see in children's books? Matt's story-telling is also beautiful. It's a simple read, but still poetic. I'm one of those people that would fail to appreciate a children's book if they're more of a practice material than a written motion picture. Not that I don't believe we don't need basal books, but still. I suppose I'm too adult by now.

Anyway. As I browsed through the web to find this book's cover image, I stumbled across about a thousand other reviews. One that stood out to me reads something like: "Nana is teaching CJ to put on a rosy-colored glass, silver-lining the fact that they're poor and live in a dumpster. CJ should learn to pick up that trash instead of walking on it". In a way, I can't disagree. There's indeed a little bit (okay, a lot) of silver-lining going on. But I suppose that reviewer missed one crucial point: neither CJ nor Nana chose to live where they live now. Knowing how things are in the real world, they probably can't move to a suburban house at the snap of a finger either. In fact, they probably don't have much option beside staying. Nana never said "don't ever leave this neighborhood" or "this is the best place on Earth". Her point is that while they're there, in that moment, let's not complain about not having a car or a fancy iPod. Let's not complain about why everything always looks "so dirty". Just because they don't have a brand new car, a manicured lawn or a white picket fence, doesn't mean they have to sit there and be miserable. Life can be beautiful wherever you live if you adjust your lenses just right. Is that silver-lining? Maybe. Is it bad? Maybe. But either or, there's no bad thing about learning how to shift your perspective so the world is what you make of it.

4/1/2016
"Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman
Copyright 2012, 320 pages
Realistic fiction

Image taken from Goodreads

Challenger Deep is one of those few novels that linger in your thoughts long, long after the last page. I love the cover design. It pretty much captures the book as a whole. I love the strewn, jumbled up yarn up top, the blue that grows darker, and Caden - making a lone descent towards the bottom of the Mariana trench. I think it captures the blend between fantasy and reality in Caden's eyes and how detached he felt from the rest of the world. As for the content itself, I like how Shusterman highlighted a lot of issues regarding the mentally ill and how society treats them while still telling Caden's story. There was a discussion about the famous mentally ill people - Vincent van Gogh and Michelangelo, to name a few - that put them under a very different light. Sometimes when people don't act the way society defines "people", we forgot they're still people. This novel would certainly help reminding readers that they still are. I feel like this book showed me a whole new perspective of the world - from the eyes of the mentally ill. Ones that we have, and still do, sweep under the rug.

About Shusterman's writing itself, I can only say that he deserves every last bit of that 2015 National Book Awards medal. The narration really did put us inside Caden's head. Early at the beginning of the book, all we see are life on 'the ship'. All we hear are Caden making very much sense of all the illogical things he did, said or believed. Later when Caden started taking medications, we see pages where the ship and the hospital setting blends into one. For example, there is one part that begins with Caden approaching Carlyle when he was mopping the deck, but then midway through we read that Carlyle "closed his laptop". We also see some sort of a retelling of what happened on the ship in its real life equivalent - showing that Caden has developed an awareness of his real-life surroundings. One thing that I love the most though, is how Shusterman led us to figuring out who is who. It is not until much later in the book that we found out "the captain" has no real life human equivalent. I was very confused - as I probably should be - if Dr. Poirot is the parrot or the captain. At the point where Caden shot the parrot - followed by an interaction at the hospital which prompted Caden to say: "Poirot is dead to me", I realized that the parrot is Dr. Poirot. But who's the captain then?

Honestly even until the very end of the book I'm not entirely sure who - or what - the captain is supposed to represent. Sure, he was a copy of the homeless man Caden met in his holiday in New York, but what is he representing exactly? If we want to say "Caden's mental illness", then what about the Abyssal Serpent? Isn't that what's supposed to represent the schizophrenia? Or is the Serpent schizophrenia, and the captain mental illness as a whole? I don't know if Shusterman meant it to be open-ended like that, or if I just missed an obvious clue. Either ways, this book is a must read. Not only do we see a great author in action, but we also learn something valuable that most of us probably would never learn elsewhere.

3/28/2016
"Maybe A Fox" by Kathi Appelt and Alison McGhee
Copyright 2016, 272 pages
Realistic Fiction

Image taken from Google

Maybe A Fox is one of those "either you love it or hate it" books. If you're on the latter group, that's probably because this book can be difficult to wrap your head around. Even the synopsis was vague, and honestly it doesn't make much sense. Here it is from Goodreads:

"Sylvie and Jules. Jules and Sylvie. Jules adores her older-by-one-year sister, Sylvie.

Sylvie: beautiful like their mother.
Sylvie: supreme maker of tiny snow families.
Sylvie: faster than fast.

Sylvie: gone.

Into thin air, Sylvie goes missing, and as Jules stumbles in grief, a fox cub is born. A shadow fox, spirit and animal in one. From the minute the cub opens her eyes, she senses something very wrong. Someone—Jules.

Jules: steadfast like their father.
Jules: supreme maker of tiny snow foxes.
Jules: collector of rocks.

Jules: heartbroken.

Who is this Jules? Who is this Sylvie she cries out for? And why does the air still prickle with something unsettled? As that dark unknown grows, the fates of the girl Jules and the fox cub, laced together with wishes and shadowy ties, are about to collide."

I remember my immediate thought after reading that synopsis above was: "what?". And honestly, even with context, I can still imagine some people raising an eyebrow flipping through the pages. The whole idea of totems, spirit animals, elements of the Earth and how every living thing is "linked" to something else is just not a common idea in today's society. I have a bit of a hard time figuring out how Kennens are supposed to work myself. Who is Senna supposed to be? On one hand, she's technically Sylvie. But on the other hand, most of the time, she's also herself. But that is exactly why I love this book. I love to learn about under represented cultures and belief systems. For those who embrace totemism, Maybe A Fox might as well be one of the very few books that tell a story of their people. That said, while I do love how it puts totemism under the spotlight for once, I worry this book did too little to inhibit over generalization. The way it is now, readers might as well assume everyone in Vermont is a totemist. Other than that, however, I really enjoy getting to know Senna.

The other major theme in this novel is coping with grief. Appelt and McGhee did a great job of depicting Jules' personal way of dealing with life after Sylvie. The sudden anger bursts, the yelling, the throwing, the screaming, the random little questions that suddenly matter so much because now you can never ask... Everything Jules went through felt so vivid and true, indicative of how connected the authors are to the story they're trying to tell. It is authenticity like this that can make a book serve as both a window and a mirror for its readers. On one hand, those who has experienced death could relate - or even feel comforted. On the other, those who have not might learn a thing or two. However, personally, what I like best is what the authors did not do. Unlike some other books and movies about grief, I don't find Appelt and McGhee injecting their own patronizing voice to teach readers how to grief. Too many books and movies heavily insist that when someone passed away, they're not really gone. "They stay in our hearts", or "they're watching you". This is also - kind of - the same message Maybe A Fox is getting at. But there's no push to believe it. Readers do not see Jules standing solemnly over The Slip with a smile on her face - no more tears roll down her eyes because she knows Sylvie is watching her. Nope. Jules still grieve. If anything, the book ends with yet another death. And thus: even more grief.

Death is a never-ending, natural, inevitable process. Everyone dies at some point, and there are deaths occurring all over the world every second of the day. It's painful. It's sad. It's heartbreaking. It's what it is. Not even the most gleaming, well-prepared, eloquent speech in the world can make someone stop grieving in a snap (like how some movies and books imply). So I'm glad how this book doesn't do a lot of silver-lining - if at all. It's great writing and touching story in one. Great book all in all.

3/25/2016
"The Mapmaker's Chronicle: Race to the End of the World" by A. L. Tait
Copyright 2014, 171 pages
Fantasy / Historical Fiction

Image taken from Goodreads

While set in a make-believe world with make-believe racial groups and make-believe countries, The Mapmaker Chronicles takes on a realistic time period when ideas that the globe is round was first raised. Thirst for knowledge urged countries - both in our real life and in the book - to send out explorers in huge ships mapping out territories never known before. At a glance, this book is yet another zero-to-hero story - as if we need more than we already have today. In this case, Quinn Freeman is a young farm boy who cooked and sew rather than doing heavy farm work. He was soon chosen to participate in a prestigious program where he competed - and outcompeted, because of course he did - sons of lords and noblemen. I found it rather interesting how the author conveniently skipped the part where Quinn was in Scribe School - perhaps knowing that it's redundant to tell. In fact, Quinn's whole experience in his school was described in this one short sentence: "the fact that Quinn had proved himself more than capable of keeping up in his class (which had surprised nobody more than Quinn himself) had only added to the problem" (p. 13-14). Translation: "of course he did well, and of course he's bullied for it. Next up!". Even with Quinn's explicit lack of confidence to be chosen as a mapmaker, atop his unwillingness to "go see the world" at the first place, the book fooled no one about how Quinn's story would later develop. At this point, the only thing that kept me flipping through the pages was Tait's sheer story-telling skills. The words she chose, on top of all, was one that charmed me from the very first page. Her way of describing things - be it people, scenery or an event, was detailed in its own unique way. Here is one paragraph where we were first introduced to Odilon of Blenheim: "The man standing next in line was quite a different proposition. Odilon of Blenheim looked ill at ease in his silk stockings, slippers and embossed velvet tunic. As well he might. Standing between two men dressed in worn leather breeches, simple hemp shirts and scuffed knee-high boots, he looked as out of place as a fish on a jetty. When he’d first presented as a candidate for the race, King Orel had looked at him askance. Why would this perfumed popinjay, particularly one so popular with the ladies, want to put himself through such danger and hardship?" (p. 30). To say that Tait uses big words is a total understatement. 

Some might find it confusing, or hard to read, but I like it that way. Maybe it's just the story's time setting. The funky, fancy words only made me feel like this book came straight out of the Middle Ages. Aside from the diction, however, the rest of the story soon exceeded my expectations. Quinn's "underdog" crew and their thrilling adventure is a lot more than just a zero-to-hero story (however much it appears to be so at first). It's about discovery, encountering fears, being patient, forgiving, trusting, regretting being trusting, huge white good-luck monster and hair-breadth escapes from death. Oh and my favorite: it's also about being open-minded. I love, love, love it how Zain repeatedly explained to the youngsters how the world is so much bigger than what they have seen. Simply because they have never seen it, doesn't mean all those strange things they encountered has never been there at the first place. I feel like this bit is still very much applicable today - where everyone has access to an accurate world map. Too many acted like the world ended in their borders. Too many are intolerant of different culture if it crossed their own. I suppose everyone needs to "go see the world" at least once in their lifetimes. 

Anyway. Back to the book. All in all, it's an enjoyable read. It did not start out great, but then there's this sudden rush of events that will engulf you and carry you with it - like a really big wave. Everything is so fast-paced. Before you can blink there's another new thing happening - making it impossible to put the book down. That said, I do wince at the tall tale side. And when I say "tall tale", I mean Quinn's exaggerated abilities. Photographic memory is not fiction. But learning a completely foreign language overnight definitely is. As someone studying Second Language Acquisition, I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that bit. I do know this book is meant to be fantasy anyway, but that definitely-impossible language skill still bothered me nonetheless. Perhaps it's just the possibility of people believing that bit to be true - since it's depicted to be a part of Quinn's photographic memory which, again, is not fiction. There's also Nammu, the ginormous, one-horned, ghostly maybe-fish. In my head I imagined Nammu to be a narwhal. The book never did reveal if Nammu is just a big fish, a monster or a spirit, but for some reason I'm crossing my fingers and toes for Nammu to be a narwhal (or something else that is realistic). Again, I know this book is supposed to be fantasy anyway, but I do prefer if it keeps the realistic parts realistic. I just think it would seriously destroy my understanding of the universe if they decided to make sea monsters real. Not that Quinn's language skills already shaken it anyway. 

Now this particular book is only the first of the trilogy. So I have yet to find out the results of the race. Obviously I have no guess as to who will claim victory, but I'm honestly a lot more interested in whether or not we will reach the part where Quinn realized there's no such thing as Genesi - and that the Earth really is round. Because - just the way I hope Nammu is a narwhal - I sure wish they wouldn't decide to make "the flat Earth myth" a fact.

3/24/2016
"Duck for President" by Doreen Cronin
Copyright 2004, 32 pages
Fantasy

Picture taken from Goodreads

This book is quite a fun one. I do love the basic idea of it. That, and the repeated joke of vote tickets being stuck under the people's bottoms. However, I'm a little conflicted as to what message it is trying to convey. At first I thought Duck will surely go home to Farmer Brown and go back to doing his regular chores. If so, then the story will be all about "be grateful of what you have", seeing how Duck kept on running for higher and higher elections and hating every single one of his leadership jobs. But apparently not! He sat comfortably in front of his computer and wrote his autobiography. Assuming Duck enjoys his new life as an author, I really don't know what the story is trying to tell. Is the author telling us to keep on shooting for the stars even if you might not like it? Is it just all about how tiring being a president is?  Is it just a quick introduction to civic duty and how elections work? Or is this story all about being ungrateful - since Farmer Brown raised and cared for all his farm animals, yet they rebel (and overthrew him!) anyway? I can't even decide what I think this book is all about. It sure made me smile, though. 

3/24/2016
"The Pout Pout Fish" by Deborah Diesen
Copyright 2008, 32 pages
Fantasy

Image taken from Google Books

This book is a favorite among my students. It's funny, has lots of pictures, and generally easy to read. There are indeed big words here and there, but even without the big words students can still work out the story by looking at the pictures. The illustrations are cartoon-like, and as adorable as anything. Forget kids - even as an adult I find this book enjoyable. That said, I do wonder if the moral of this story is one I agree with. If we know someone who is a real-life, human version of Pout Pout Fish, chances are they're not exactly "pouting". They're probably stressed or depressed, and kissing them right in the face is probably not the best solution to cheer them up. Speaking of cheering people up, I also don't like how this book portrays that sad equals bad, and happy equals good. We are humans because we feel a multitude of emotions. Being restricted to only one emotion is not at all fair, nor is it the kind of mindset I want my students to develop. If we're talking about depression specifically, then this book represents the very stigma surrounding it. We see all the other fish in the ocean telling Pout Pout Fish to smile - to try harder to smile. There's even one fish that blatantly said that his sad face bothers everyone else. That is, sadly, exactly how most people with mental illness are treated in the society. Except there's no such thing as a big fish with red lipstick giving out free kisses in our real world. Meaning: there is no such thing as a finger-snap, immediate solution to depression. Being kind to your sad friends is a good starting point. But don't expect them to "cheer up". In fact, if the definition of "cheer up" is "laugh a lot and be social", then don't expect anyone to cheer up. Again: we are humans because we feel a multitude of emotions. It's alright if someone is introverted, or prefers to be alone. Sad is not bad!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

03/24/2016
"City Dog Country Frog" by Mo Willems
Copyright 2010, 64 pages
Anthropomorphic Fiction

Picture taken from goodreads.com

I read this book with one of my students during reading time. While he enjoys the story more, I personally like the illustrations a little better. The water color paintings are very realistic, making it easier to picture this story happening in real life. I also like how the author picked a dog and a frog of all animals - just because it's a little easier to pronounce together. Story-wise, I think this is one of those picture books that can spark a conversation. What happened to Country Frog? Did he lose a friend too when he first met City Dog? Does this mean no friendship lasts forever? Is that bad?

I always prefer books that allow readers to guess the moral behind the story rather than the ones that hand it out in a silver platter. This way I can engage more with the story and try to connect it with my own real life. In this case, I thought back to all the childhood friendships I've had and lost. All the people I used to endlessly talk to are now long-gone strangers. They have new friends now. So do I. That said, I'm an adult now. If I read this book as a nine-year old, would I make that connection? If not, what sort of message would I pull out of this story? At a quick glance from other people's reviews, there seems to be a general consensus that this book is "incredibly sad". My student, however, told me this book has a happy ending because City Dog made a new friend. So when I say this book sparks conversations, I really do mean it. Great book all around.

02/27/2016
"Anya's Ghost" by Vera Brosgol
Copyright 2011, 224 pages
Fantasy and realistic fiction

Picture taken from books.google.com

This graphic novel is a little bit of everything. There's high school life, there's struggle of immigrant students, there's typical teenage stories, and then there's the ghost. For some reason, I don't actually expect Emily to turn "evil" in the end. I suppose it's her harmless look, what with the dandelion-like hair and round empty eyes. The two main characters also seem to get along really well at first. So I guess in a sense, there's a plot twist too. It's definitely a fun read.

I found this book as a recommendation for students in grades six through eight. That means children aged twelve to fourteen. I feel like an old soul saying this, but reading that recommendation, I totally didn't expect for Anya to be smoking. Granted, she quit in the end - and on top of that she explained that she only started because she thought it looked cool - but that detail definitely caught me off guard. Anya also seem to find smoking her favorite way to kill time. That said, the way the author depicted the other two characters who smoke - Siobhan and Emily - made me think that the author tried to insert a "don't smoke" message after all. Siobhan was never drawn with eyes resembling everyone else's. Her eyes are just a bunch of straight lines - hinting a tired, not-focused, just-not-right-in-the-head look. If that's not obvious enough of a message, Emily is a serial killer. She also only started smoking after she turned evil. So I suppose there's room for debate whether this book is trying to encourage or discourage teenage smoking.

Another detail that I liked about Anya's Ghost is how Anya tried to 'fit in'. Everyone says that Anya blends in real well, but she always thought of herself as the odd one out. Not only that, she kept an eye on other people to identify whether or not they're being "fobby" (Fresh Off the Boat, apparently). Not everyone gets to experience moving halfway across the globe to go to school, and sometimes people don't really get what exactly made it difficult. So I do like how this book touches on the topic. High school and bullying - sadly - goes like peanut butter and jelly here in The States. Even more so if the student looks, talks and/or acts different. I do hope Anya can help students become more tolerant of their peers. Studying abroad, to some people, is less of a dream and more of a problem.

02/25/2016
"Uh Oh!" by Shutta Crum
Copyright 2015 (32 pages)
Realistic fiction

This is my first almost-wordless picture book. There is, apparently, a lot more to reading than just processing text. This book leaves a lot to be read even with only one word every other page (or so): "uh oh!". This makes sense, because the children in the book are only toddlers. I kind of want to say it's an older girl and a younger boy, but really their character design is pretty androgynous. Maybe not so much with the child wearing the orange swimsuit - because those frills look like a skirt - but in general, there's no definite clue to the children's gender. The 'girl' wearing the orange swimsuit, for example, don't have long eyelashes or wearing a flower-shaped hairpin. The other child, whom I assume to be a boy just because of the color of the pants, is wearing a broad sun hat so we can't judge by hair style. At one point in the book, the hat got blown by the wind and we see that the child has a short hair. But then again, so is every child at that age. That said, I'm curious how many readers would immediately go: "Aha! A boy! I was right!" at that point in the story.

When I asked my professor for a book recommendation, she noted that she liked Uh-oh! because it has a lot of unexplained details we can discuss. One thing she noted was that the children are being watched by two women. There's an implication that these women are their mothers, but then again there's no explanation. So anyone can draw any conclusions. Maybe the children are not siblings after all. Maybe they're cousins. Maybe they're just neighbors. Why is it that we immediately assume they're on a family trip anyway? It's interesting to see what sort of assumptions people can come up with reading this book. Aside from that, the story is fun, simple and easy to follow. Hats off to Patrice Barton for her beautiful drawings.

02/25/2016
"Waiting" by Kevin Henkes
Copyright 2015, 32 pages
Fantasy

Picture taken from kevinhenkes.com

I went off Googling a little bit before I received this book on the mail. People seem to really, really like it. They like it so much, Waiting won two prestigious awards. I like it too. The illustrations are plainly adorable. The slinky rabbit is just too cute, and if the "Puppy on A Sled" toy is for sale somewhere I would probably line up to get one. So I do like it. But I don't know if I like it as much as everyone else does. I finished this book the same time I finished the last three books I posted about. I waited until now to review it because I don't really know what to write about Waiting. I'm not sure what the story is about. That is, if there's any to begin with.

The whole idea of the book is that each of the toys on the windowsill is waiting for something (except for the Rabbit, who just likes to look outside the window). And then as they wait, they watched as varying natural phenomenons - such as storms, snowfall, rainbows, and many more - come and go. At one point there's this ceramic elephant that joined them. However, unlike the five toys that are anthropomorphic - as in they change positions and facial expressions in every page - the elephant looked lifeless. And then by the next page it's already in pieces underneath the windowsill. By the end of the book, A Cat With Patches joined them. The cat turned out to be a matryoshka (Russian nesting doll) and later we see it looking out the window along with all of its smaller pieces. The book stated that it's not waiting for the rain, the moon, the wind, or the snow. It's just waiting for the next thing to happen. So I guess the bit about the cat "waiting for the next thing to happen" is supposed to be the ending note that makes the story full circle. However, as I looked at all the Cats with Patches cramming in the windowsill with the original five toys, I found myself raising an eyebrow muttering: "huh?"

Then again, maybe I'm just not as critical as most people. Someone somewhere wrote that they found this book reassuring, because waiting is a huge part of children's lives. I can't say that's not true, but I also can't see how that's a connection I would make. In fact, I can barely make any connections at all.
On one hand, I suppose it's nice to have a book with a vague story line so people can have their own interpretations about what's going on. On the other hand, I find that most readers are more inclined to follow through with a book if they really know what the story is all about. I'm more on the latter part. That said, I still like this book. It's simple, short and sweet. With short texts and adorable, detailed illustrations, Waiting would make a nice reading practice for young readers.

02/24/2016
"Funny Bones: Posada and His Day of the Dead Calaveras" by Duncan Tonatiuh
Copyright 2015, 40 pages
Nonfiction (informational, biography)

Picture taken from Google

This book has a few features that set it aside from your typical informational picture books. First of all, there are a few original drawings made by Lupé with some sort of a discussion question written around it. For example, in the part of the story where Lupé realized that Mexico City is becoming more modern, the question was: "Don Lupé drew some wild skeletons racing and trampling one another. Was he saying that... we can try to go faster but one day we will all reach the same finish line and become calaveras?" 

For a book specifically designed for young readers, that was a pretty nontraditional question to ask. Most people like to ask children how they feel about school, friendship or the everlasting classic: "what do they want to be when they grow up?". Discussions about death and mortality is often avoided, as it is considered "grim" or "harsh". Since the original drawing is wordless, I find that Tonatiuh must have chosen that question on purpose - because there are many many ways to interpret a wordless picture. I'm not for or against the view Tonatiuh took on this book, but I like how - this way - he took the feel of the culture (the idea that skulls - representing death - is the opposite of scary) and spread it all around. After all, I feel like it's clear as day that Tonatiuh is aiming for a global audience. Throughout the book I see explanations and pronunciation guides for people's names and what specific cultural items are called. I find it a little surprising, honestly, since most people in The States are hugely familiar with the Spanish language. I mean, at least that's my impression of them. I do enjoy the explanations and glossary though. It makes the book feel more accessible. I did find smaller texts half-hidden throughout the pages that has no English translation though. I imagine it serves as some sort of an Easter egg for those who speak the language.

Second of all, the bits about printing technique. I honestly don't know how much attention or retention can the average person pay to the four-panel, how-to explanations of lithography, etching, and engraving techniques included. I, for one, certainly don't understand it that much. That said, I do like having them explained instead of simply mentioned. The whole idea of a biography book is so we can get to know someone we never got to know. So, since printing is Lupé's world, I do appreciate having that detail included and explained - however minimally. Reading through this book, I got a feeling that Tonatiuh asked himself what would his main character want people to know if he traveled through time and say: "hey, want to hear my story?".

In short, I can see how much effort was put into the making of this book. The illustrations are adorable too!

02/24/2016
"Drum Dream Girl" by Margarita Engle
Copyright 2015, 48 pages
Nonfiction (biography)

Picture taken from Google

This picture book tells the life story of Millo Castro Zaldarriaga: a young musical prodigy from 1930s Cuba who is only referred as "drum dream girl" throughout the story. This book is written in poetry form, which means there are more pictures than texts. So, yes, it's a short read. But you really can't put down this book so quickly. I took my hat off for illustrator Rafael López.  His drawings are vibrant, colorful, eye-catching and full of symbols starting from the cover picture, to the summary page, all the way to the back cover. I especially like all the symbols implied within each drawing. For example, in the cover photo above, we can argue that the drum sitting up on the moon symbolizes the fact that Millo is restricted from practicing her hobby. On the other hand, we can also argue the same detail symbolizes how Millo connects with her Cuban culture through playing musical instruments. What else? I can't pull up another guess from the top of my head, but I love it when books leave wordless questions. That way, there are no right or wrong answers.

The poem inside is beautiful too. There are repetitions, rhymes, similar-sounding words like "drum" and "dream", and most of all a tale to tell. The story is easy to follow, the words easy to read, but the plot still detailed. Sometimes the book would switch in page orientation from landscape to portrait. That's probably just so they can fit even more pictures, but I also think of it as a nice attention grabber for those of us who don't usually sit through a whole book. In addition to that, the illustrations - which I just cannot praise enough - will surely keep readers' attention long enough for them to come from any age group. In short, this book is a work of art both in narration and illustration. It's a great tribute to a brave young girl whom I wish I've heard of a little earlier.

02/22/2016
"The Crossover" by K'wame Alexander
Copyright: 2014 (237 pages)
Realistic fiction

Photo taken from Wikipedia

I must say, when I first picked up this book, I thought for sure I won't enjoy it. I'm not a sports person. I know nothing about any kind of sports, and even by the first glance it's already obvious that sports is what this book is all about. What made me give The Crossover a try is the fact that it's written in poetry. Now that is right up my alley.

I was not wrong. The Bell father and sons live and breathe basketball. The book was written from the point of view of one of the twins, Joshua Bell, in the form of free verse poetry. As a result, the book was packed full with terminologies I have zero idea about. "Crossover" is about the only basketball terminology that Josh took the time explaining. Speaking of explaining things, Josh Bell's diction is one of the many aspects of this novel that I really like. One thing about Josh that I immediately notice, beside being skillful in basketball, is that he has a wide range of vocabulary. Every so often he dedicated a whole page to define a word dictionary-style, along with examples of the word being used in a sentence. Most often, those examples correlate to the events in the book to keep the story flowing. I feel like it's a great way to help readers learn new words whether they meant to or not. For example, I don't think I would ever forget what "pulchritudinous" mean after finishing this book. It means: "having great physical attractiveness".

See?

Another thing that I found unique is how personal, casual, and day-to-day this book came across. Instead of imagery, Alexander uses font size, paragraph alignments, and even letter arrangements to describe what's happening in Josh Bell's head. We see words that are spelled in all caps, diagonally. We see words that have capital letters every other letter. We see words that are spelled downwards. All these made me feel Josh Bell's excitement and thrill when he's playing on the court along with him. And then, later on as Josh feels more sad or frustrated than excited, the font style and size goes back to normal. Lastly on his county championship game, we see the funny font sizes again.

Too many people are discouraged by novels due to the sheer density of words in each of its pages. Many more are turned off by the amount of "big words" found within the sentences. So the way Alexander wrote The Crossover made this novel a lot more down to Earth, just so anyone - avid readers or beginners, basketball fans or non-sport enthusiast - would feel welcome to pick it up and give it a try. After all, The Crossover is not a hundred-percent sports. There's also family, friendship, loss and mourning. Although there are many obvious hints about Chuck Bell's poor health since the beginning, the part where he passed on still hits me hard. I suppose stories feel different when told through poetry. There are less words, so it leaves the mind to fill up more gaps - making closer connection between the story and real life. In short; this novel is poignant, funny, unique and memorable. If you haven't read it yet, do it now.

02/19/2016
"Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen
Copyright: 1987 (192 pages)
Realistic Fiction

Picture of book cover by Amazon

First and foremost, I think I've found my new favorite author. This book is older than I am, but I have only heard of it recently. Now I know what I've been missing out on. I love Paulsen's intense, short-and-sweet way of describing the story. I always said that I connect less with books that are in third-person point of view. Not with this one. By the end of the book I spent time browsing through the fine prints to make sure it's actually fiction. It felt a little too real.

I don't know if Hatchet was originally advertised for young readers. I feel like this is one of those books that anyone can read and enjoy no matter which age group they're currently in. It's a blend of self-discovery, coming of age, adventure, thrill, and a hefty dose of nature appreciation. I really like the scene about the bear when Brian first got stranded, and a similar one with the wolf pack later on. I love how it explains how wild animals, even the ones with fangs and claws, are not the blood-thirsty man-eating monsters that we always depict them to be. They only attack if they feel threatened, not just because they're inherently vicious. I love how, later in his time in the woods, Brian smiles and nods to the wolf pack as they calmly walk past him. I also like how, of all things on Earth, the two wild animals that truly have hurt Brian is a porcupine, a skunk, and of course that one crazy moose. I've seen some similar survival stories where the hero picks up weapons and then randomly go off fighting lions or tigers just to highlight their bravado. In contrary to that, Brian is a very modest character. He doesn't carry the "miracle child" image, much less the "I'm a survival expert, everyone learn from my awesomeness" one. I find it refreshingly honest how the first thing Brian did after he survived the plane crash was not scouring the woods for edible seemingly-inedible items, or defeating a dangerous predator. Instead, he sat down and slept. For two days.


Painfully realistic, blatantly honest details is a constant theme throughout this novel. Starting from how the pilot got a heart attack (cartoons and movies like to depict heart attack as a person dancing funny before they comically scream and faint), to Brian's low point where he attempted suicide, and finally to how Brian's view changed even long after he went back to his life. The typical happy ending that most people expect for this kind of story is Brian's parents reuniting. That did not happen in Hatchet. Another typical ending would be for Brian to become rich and/or famous instantly for the rest of his life. That did not happen either. Brian is still Brian, a young teenager whose parents just divorced - except that he survived a plane crash and lived on his own in Canadian wilderness for a couple months. The changes that happened to him was very personal (how he admired food variety and availability in the supermarket), which - for me anyway - made him easier to admire.

Another topic that this novel touched is divorce. We never seem to figure out how to talk about divorce to our children. What do we say, what do we do, how will they feel... All these questions are probably a century old and nobody can really answer them. There are probably tons of print out there that aims to "water down" the divorce talk to children. It's often something like "mommy and daddy may not live together anymore, but they will still love you the same!", followed by attempts of silver-lining it ("you will now have TWO Christmas presents! Yay!"). I'm not saying it's bad or wrong, but it's getting old. Paulsen did something else. Instead of taking on the 'grown-up' image to tell the kids what divorce is, how it works and how to feel, Paulsen chose to simply describe - in detail - how was thirteen-year old Brian Robeson's experience with his parents' divorce. There was never a sense of "this is how you ought to feel, say or do in the event of your parents' divorce" in the book. There was just a description of how Brian felt; what made him sad, what made him angry, what made him feel everything else. I have never been in Brian's shoes, but I suppose sometimes that's all they need; a story to relate to. Just so they know whether or not feeling sad or angry means they're a bad person.

I could go on and on about this short novel. There was so much to love, and so much to talk about.

02/19/2016
"Gaston" by Kelly DiPucchio
Copyright: 2014 (40 pages)
Anthropomorphic fiction, realistic fiction

Picture of book cover taken from Google

As an avid dog lover, I find this picture book endearing and fun to read. The illustration is simply adorable, and the story leaves much to be discussed. For example, although there are hints about Gaston being the odd one out, the book didn't mention about anyone in his family finding his behavior weird (although the readers might). However, when Gaston and Antoinette swapped places, we can see from the illustrations how much their new families found their behavior odd. What I like most is when Gaston lines up with the other bulldogs, and Antoinette lines up with the other poodles, the text says: "now it looks right". But then when the families noticed that they prefer to have their mismatched children instead of the 'correct' one, the text says: "now it feels right". And then, there's also this book's summary on Google Books, which read: "a bulldog and a poodle learn that family is about love, not appearances".

The book did not mention how Gaston ended up with the poodle family, and Antoinette with the bulldog family. However, I like to think this book is aiming to talk about adopted or foster children, who may or may not look like their adoptive or foster parents. I happen to know someone who adopted a child from a different racial group myself, and the stories I heard from them showed how little most people accept the idea of a family that doesn't all look like one another. Said people still ask how are my friend related to her daughter, even after they heard the child calling my friend "mommy". In short: I think it's great how we have picture books like this one to shine a spotlight on every different kind of families we have out there.

Dead End in Norvelt

01/27/2016
"Dead End in Norvelt" by Jack Gantos
Copyright: 2011 (341 pages)
History, fiction

Disclaimer: picture of book cover is taken from books.google.com

This is one of those books I can hardly summarize if anybody asked what is it about. In short, Jack Gantos used his own name and city of birth to tell a story of one preteen boy's summer holiday in the 1960s Norvelt, Pennsylvania. Within the book we hear about Jack's bloody nose, the Gantos family's struggle for money, the history-loving Miss Volker, the odd Mr. Spizz, an anarchistic Hells Angels group, and many more. There's so much happening in this book I begin to question which part is fiction and which part is nonfiction. By the end of the book, I feel like I truly have known Jack for a whole summer. There are so many little things going on all at the same time, asking me to describe this book would feel like asking me to summarize the life of someone I know. It's difficult, but I'll try:

Dead End in Norvelt is, in essence, all about history. Especially the history behind the creation of Norvelt. Not only that, it also ties the past to the "present day" (1962) Norvelt which is slowly dying off. There was this debate between the characters about what should the current residents do about Norvelt. Miss Volker, one of the first settlers in the city, wanted to bring in more young couples so that the city would be lively once more. The rest, including Jack's father, seem to prefer selling off the properties and moving away to Florida. This debate then ties to what is and what do we do about history. Is it really just something in the past? Does it ever end? Does it live on?

Aside from local history, Jack also inserts bits and pieces about history from other places. He mentioned that his favorite part of the newspaper is the "this day in history" part, which we - as readers - always read together with him. In this sense alone, I feel like this book is written to express the author's love for history, and also to draw in more interest from its young readers towards learning history. Unlike the typically drab, boring history books Dead End in Norvelt is thrilling and hilarious. There is even a plot twist and a murder mystery in the end. The sheer refreshing honesty of twelve-year old Jack adds to the laughs and smiles. Considering how most school-aged children think history is one of the most boring subject ever invented, I like how this book is packaged that way. Most books out there attempt to make history look exciting by throwing out fun facts. This book does that too. In addition, however, it gave room for its younger readers to ponder and discuss. For example: does Miss Volker's proposed "dancing plague" truly exist - considering how she referenced history for evidence? What should the adults of Norvelt do about their town? Do they sell it off, or do they try to bring in more people so its history would live on?

I'm not at all a fan of the subject, but I couldn't put this book down once I picked it up. I sure hope the same goes for the preteen audiences.

I did say this book has a lot of little things going on at the same time. Beside a promotion for an underrated subject,  it's also a tale of Jack's perspective development. This is shown in many aspects. One of them is when he heard his mother attempt to pay his doctor with fruits and pickles. When his mother explained how she believes barter is a fairer system than money, he initially thought it's ridiculous. But later he warmed up to the opinion and even started attempting to barter himself. Economics topics aside, this shows how Jack is growing more receptive to new ideas and opinions that conflict his own. Speaking from personal experience, not everyone learns this skill even in adulthood. So I'm glad to read that out of many other things the author can write for children to think about (or imitate), he chose this one. There's also this pivotal moment at the very end of the book, when Jack finally managed to get a ride on his dad's airplane. His father, a jester himself, brought balloons filled with red paint to throw at the nearby theater's screen. At the very beginning of the book, Jack was trying to shoot at the very same theater screen with his dad' rifle (which he thought was empty). However, on the last page, he quickly changed his mind and told his father to stop the moment he saw people panicking. Again, throwing balloons from an airplane is an extreme example that not many can relate to, but it's fascinating to see how he chose to put other people on top of his idea of fun. What's even more impressive, we followed Jack through all these progress in one short summer.

Now I have talked about all these points, but still I don't even come close to telling what the story is like. On that note, I would like to end this review with a quote from another author that reviewed the same book:

"Nobody can tell a story like Jack Gantos can. And this is a story like no other. It's funny. It's thoughtful. It's history. It's weird. But you don't need me to attempt to describe it. Get in there and start reading Gantos." - Jon Scieszka, founder of guysread.com and author of the Spaceheadz series
   

The Changeling

01/25/2016
"The Changeling" by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Copyright: 1970 (218 pages)
Juvenile fiction

Disclaimer: this picture is taken from books.google.com

The Changeling is a short novel revolving around the friendship between upper-class Martha Abbott and her marginalized, lower-class neighbor Ivy Carson. Although the main character is Martha, the spotlight is mostly shone on Ivy. That way, we get a good feel about both girls' thoughts and life events. Right from the get-go, Snyder made it very clear through her narration that Martha is one of the Abbotts, and Ivy one of the Carsons.  Readers got introduced in great detail to each member of the Abbott family; what they do, where they live, what their leisure activities are, and - for Martha's older siblings - what kind of students they are. In short, Martha's father is a lawyer. Her mother is a housewife with a keen interest on golf, among many other volunteer projects. Her grandmother grows many rare, prized (probably expensive) plant species in the family garden. Cath and Thomas - her two older siblings - are star students with a huge number of friends and membership in many influential organizations such as the Girl Scout and the school's football team. Ivy, on the other hand, is a Carson. That is all we got from her.

We got a description about her cramped, rundown house under the highway. We also heard that some of her siblings made it to the news for criminal activities. We then heard, from Ivy herself, that the family has eight children and constantly move from state to state. Martha then added into the narration that, "apparently", the reason why the Carsons move a lot is because Ivy's father owes a lot of people a lot of money. The "apparently" part is because Martha is flooded with rumors from other wealthy children about what exactly do the Carsons do. She (Martha) then noted that the actual fact is not as gruesome as she initially thought.

Although I realize that this is definitely not the first piece of literature that describes the friendship between two children living in two different walks of life, I find The Changeling unique as it mostly focuses on Ivy's universe of make-believe that she shared with Martha. Between a mother that is constantly drunk, an infant sibling she must care for right after school, a father that is constantly in debt and a beloved aunt that is always so sick, it's admirable to see how Ivy chose to comfort herself in the many worlds she made in her tales. That being said, I have always been a Martha Abbott all my life. From "an Abbott" perspective, Ivy's ability to stand tall despite all the turbulence going on in her family is nothing short of admirable. However, from the perspective of "a Carson", Ivy is probably just another girl. Each child growing up in difficult situations must somehow create their own way of dealing with things. It just so happens that Ivy's way is telling stories.

Speaking of perspectives, I find it fascinating how Snyder chose Martha as the main character. I feel like it is Snyder's attempt to subtly critique the way privileged people view their less privileged community members. As we follow Martha through her life in the flaw-intolerant Abbott family, we come across a heavy dose of prejudice and ignorance. We read, over and over, about Martha's family's dislike towards their daughter's friendship with "that Carson girl".  We hear opinions, unsolicited advice and accusations that we all must have heard at least once in our own real lives. Such as: poor children have greater tendency to end up in jail, or poor children cannot compete with their wealthier peers in school - even if it's in something like dancing. As Martha matures we even see these accusations from the girl herself. At one point in the book Martha noted that Ivy is still wearing the same dress as yesterday, which she claimed to be childish-looking. These are all things that we have heard or even thought of ourselves in day-to-day life. But now that we've seen Ivy through Martha's eyes, these words actually sting. In fact, this whole book hurts to read. It's supposed to be.

As I've mentioned above, I'm one of the world's many Martha Abbotts. The way the adult Abbotts throw around accusations, laugh off Martha's lack of social ability and shove Martha around to different activities they deem to be "normal" is so similar to the way my own family talk and behave. Although Snyder never described the adult Abbotts as "mean", "pushy" or "insensitive", I do think those words would easily pop up in our readers' heads no matter what background they come from. While I'm not going to say Snyder is looking to critique the upper-class families' parenting style - as we hear equally bad things from the Carson side of the book - I must say I'm happy to see this side of the upper-class to be exposed and discussed. I'm happy to see how Martha showed that her life is not at all perfect. At the same time, while we can easily see Ivy's life is not perfect, we got introduced to other ways for her to appear perfect: her personality, her courage, her dancing skills, and of course her imagination. These two girls complement each other. While I realize this book was originally written in 1970, I feel like it's still an important read to children today. I like how it shows that nothing is black-and-white. Even the most perfect-looking family has its down sides, and the least perfect-looking one their up sides.