Yay school is back in session! But there are a bajillion Covid cases as Delta is hitting these kids hard, and it is spreading like wildfire, and the not requiring masks isn’t helping things. Also punishing schools who ask their kids to mask up is just stupid and wrong. I get no one wants to wear a mask but I also want to be alive and not in the hospital with Covid, so I wear a mask in public and while I’m at work (required there). And thank goodness the FDA finally approved the Pfizer vaccine! Ok rant over. I realize I might lose a few people with those comments but I keep waiting for common sense to reassert itself in the world and I’m still waiting…Therefore, on to more book reviews!
Cat Problems written by Jory John, illustrated by Lane Smith
I really wanted to love this as much I’ve loved the other books in this Animal Problems series, and his other books like The Bad Seed and The Good Egg, but it just felt a little forced. Penguin Problems was hilarious, Giraffe Problems a bit less so (minus the rant in the middle) but I guess I just felt like there was nothing new about cats in here to get me excited, except for the squirrel rant in the middle and the one cat constantly telling the other cat that it is in their spot. Lane Smith’s illustrations are good, so extra 1/2 star for that. Maybe my son will like it. Recommended for ages 5-8, 2-1/2 stars.
Yes I find it totally plausible that a dinosaur like Bolivar could live in NYC without anyone noticing. Keeping that in mind, I thought this was a super adorable and imaginative book. I can’t wait to share it with my son. I think he will love it as much as me. Recommended for ages 6+, 5 stars.
Re-read on Aug 23, 2021: I re-read this for my new Tween Graphic Novel Club I’m leading at work. I absolutely adore this book! I can’t wait to talk about it with the kiddos (they loved it too)! Oh and my son loved it so much he had to get his own copy of it.
Jen Wang has come out with another brilliant graphic novel. This one, based on real life circumstances of the author’s life, is really well done. Moon is loud and angry and fun and generous. She meets Christine when her and her mother move in their garage apartment after falling on hard times. She is exactly what Christine needs, and they become fast friends despite being from different worlds. Moon believes she has visions of celestial beings which turns out to be a brain tumor and it takes nearly losing her friend for Christine to realize how important she is. Made me tear up at the end. Highly recommended for ages 10-14, 5 stars.
Re-read Aug 27-29, 2021: This will be September’s choice for my Tween Graphic Novel Club and I’m excited about it! I love the juxtaposition of these two characters. Moon is the fun that Christine is missing as her straight-laced Chinese parents want her to be the best at everything (which leaves little time to be a kid or have fun), and Christine is the calm/stability that Moon needs as her life has been crazy since she was 6 yrs old and her dad died. Moon shows Christine how to express herself through dancing/listening to K-pop, and I love the dance number at the end with the boys!
The Okay Witch and the Hungry Shadow (The Okay Witch #2) written and illustrated by Emma Steinkellner
I was excited for this sequel to come out, especially as I’m doing the first book, The Okay Witch, in October for my new Tween Graphic Novel Club. Moth Hush is a bit more comfortable with her identity as a witch, it’s being a girl in middle school that seems to be the problem. As an eighth-grade girl, Moth is still getting bullied at school, and to make matters worse, her mom has started dating the dorkiest teacher at her school. Could her life get any worse? At a celebration of her grandmother becoming a witch, she finds a powerful charm that helps her become more confident and cool, and what teen doesn’t want to be those things? But what price will the charm evoke and will Moth be willing to pay it? Recommended for ages 10-14, 4 stars.
Mr. Laszlo, her talking familiar cat, who speaks Yiddish is my favorite character in the book, as is his commentary. I liked Steinkellner’s treatment/reaction to bullying, a hard subject to cover at the best of times but one that so many kids face at school, including Moth and her friends. Cat, a Goodreads reviewer who posted April 29, 2021, said this about it: “This book acknowledges that bullying is not often so random as it is systemic, prolonged, and sometimes influenced by social factors like racism, xenophobia, ableism, et al. By taking this approach, Moth’s feelings are expressed and validated (and hopefully, readers will take note). I think this is one of the better, more helpful, books about dealing with bullying that I’ve read recently, and I think kids will feel seen, and perhaps more importantly, empowered.”
Gregor and the Marks of Secret (The Underland Chronicles #4) by Suzanne Collins
First read March 2009: Definitely liked this one better than the third book, as it had better character development and a more interesting plot. However, I will say that the whole gnawer’s plan for the nibblers was really gruesome and not something I would want elementary school kids reading about. And I was rather ticked off by the abrupt ending. It was building up the whole book and to suddenly cut it off like that was just wrong. But I guess that’s so you just have to read the 5th book, which I want to do now more than read “The Graveyard Book,” which I’ve waited two months to read and currently have at home. Recommended for ages 10-14, 4 stars.
Re-reading to my son on e-book on Kindle (July 16-Aug 27, 2021): This book got pretty dark, more than I remember at least. The gnawer’s way of killing the nibblers was disturbing and my kid got a little scared (hopefully he didn’t get nightmares about that part). It is basically setting up for the all out war between the gnawers and humans in the next book.
The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus #5) by Rick Riordan, narrated by Nick Chamian
Usually I write reviews for the books I read/listen to but for whatever reason I didn’t, so my review will be completely new. There is so much stuff going on this book, but I will my best try to summarize. Things that have been in process for the series are coming to a head in this volume, namely Gaea is trying her best to be awoken and have her children the giants and all the other monsters, dragged out of Tartarus by the Doors of Death to the Underworld being open in the previous books, are very much alive and ready to cause some chaos. The Greeks/Camp Half-Blood have sent Percy Jackson, Annabeth, Leo, Jason, and Piper on a flying boat, named the Argo II topped with Festus the dragon, to Greece via a quest to stop Gaea. Meanwhile the rescued Athena Parthenos is being shadow-traveled from Greece back to Camp Half-Blood with Nico, Coach Hedge, and Reyna, one of the Praetors of the Roman Camp. The Romans are being led by Octavius, a maniacal auger intent on destroying “the Greekist scum”, and they are making their way to Long Island from California to destroy Camp Half Blood. Nico, Coach Hedge and Reyna are trying to make it to camp before the Romans invade. All of this is happening at once and the story jumps around, but thankfully not so much that you can’t follow along and/or figure out who is who as long as you’ve been paying attention the rest of the series. I love Aescelpius’ character, and the friendship between Piper, Annabeth, and Reyna. My favorite characters were Frank and Coach Hedge.
I can’t remember too much of what I thought of it the first time around, but this time around it just felt like the never ending audiobook (mostly because we borrowed from the library for forever and took a break over the summer to focus on summer reading, to get our 1000 points and prizes), but also because I was wondering how Riordan can tie up all the loose ends in one 12-disc audiobook (he manages to eventually). The “Trials of Apollo” series is next, and my son is excited for even more Greek mythology! Recommended for ages 9-13, 4-1/2 stars.
The House of the Scorpion (Matteo Alacran #1) by Nancy Farmer
I thought I didn’t write a review for this when I read it back in Dec 2011, so I wrote this one instead. I like this one better, so I got rid of the original one. El Patron (the original Matteo Alacran) is 140 years old and is “the lord of Opium, a strip of poppy fields between the USA and Aztlan (the country formerly known as Mexico)” at the start of this dystopian book. El Patron has created a clone for himself, who we are introduced to as Matt. Matt Alacran is different, and everyone treats him differently because of what he is and usually they don’t treat him well. We see him grow from 0-6 years old, and then later from 6-14 years, when everything changes for him. As Thomas said in his Goodreads review from Aug 8, 2009, “Matt does make a few friends, such as Celia, a cook in the Alacran estate that treats Matt like her own son, Tam Lin, one of El Patron’s bodyguards, and Maria, a very emotional girl that has a large mouth and a big heart.” Matt isn’t sure how to think of El Patron, on one hand he loves him for being his creator and is drawn to him. On the other hand, he begins to suspect he is evil after learning about the existence of eejits, the zombie-like computer chip controlled people that work on the opium farm that surrounds the estate, to the point they can’t think for themselves at all. Another Goodreads reviewer Linda from her review in Sept 11, 2007, had this to say about the book (which I agree with): “House of the Scorpion is a chilling story because Farmer portrays a world that just may be possible. Cloning is already a reality. There are people in today’s world just as invisible to the larger society as the orphans. Child slavery exists. Environmental degradation is occurring. Matt’s escape from his future as a clone gives that reader hope that good will prevail in this world as well.” I also agree with something a couple of other reviewers said that the book should’ve stopped after Matt escaped from Opium as it seemed like an unnecessary section, especially given that there is a sequel. I mean I get that she needs to talk about how he’s forced to grow up a little and make friends, but really they could’ve just skipped to the San Luis part. It’s part of the reason this book is getting four and not five stars. The ending though was bat shit crazy, and I had completely forgotten about it (though it was on par for the crazy crap El Patron was used to doing). Recommended for ages 14+, 4 stars.
Be Gay Do Comics! edited by Michael Bors
I had found this collection of comics by LGBTQ+ writers through one of my many book review sites and it looked intriguing. It was a cool mix of personal monologues about coming out experiences, growing up LGBTQ+ across the world and a lot of history that I didn’t know about. One of the first ones I enjoyed was “I Came Out Late in Life and That’s Okay” by Alison Wilgus, as she didn’t come out as queer till she was in her 30s and I can totally understand that being in somewhat of the same boat myself. In particular she said on page 26, which really resonated with me: “But what about when you make it to your thirties mostly blind to your own queerness? What about when your journey isn’t a steady march towards openness and acceptance, but a clumsy stumble through ‘What the hell is even going on with me?’ There aren’t as many of those kind of stories out there.” I also really enjoyed the Anonymously written historical comic “Queerness Has Always Been Part of LIfe in the Middle East”, which was a bit eye-opening if I’m honest. I had no idea what the original colors/meanings of the Rainbow Flag were, but Max Dlabick’s comic “Freedom, Joy and Power: The History of the Rainbow Flag” illuminated that on page 89, “The original eight colors of the flag represent: pink = sex, red = life, orange = healing, yellow = sunlight, green = nature, turquoise = magic/art, indigo = serenity, and purple = spirit. The pink stripe was soon removed due to pink flag-making fabric being unavailable. The turquoise and indigo stripes were combined into one [dark] blue strip (now representing harmony) to keep the number of stripes even.”
This volume had good timing because I was reading The Deviant’s War which was about early gay rights and their struggles during the 1950s and 60s, and then I found the Kazimir Lee and Dorian Alexander comic “The Homophobic Hysteria of the Lavender Scare”, which is basically about the same thing (even going so far as to mention the subject of The Deviant’s War Frank Kameny, with his connection to forming the Washington chapter of the Mattachine Society). The comic also talked about on pg 152 how “In 26 US States, it is still legal to lose your job for living honestly as a queer person”, which includes most of the Southeastern US states, some midwestern and Arizona. I have lived in the Southeast and now Southwest so I know how people can treat LGBTQ+ people there. I was also fascinated to learn about General Steuben, especially since his “military standards became the mold for the American military and his training manual was taught to American soldiers for nearly a century”, in the comic “The American Revolution’s Greatest Leader Was Openly Gay” by Josh Trujillo and Levi Hastings. Overall it was a most enjoyable book to read and I’m glad I managed to snag a copy from the library. 4 stars.
Hermione's Knapsack 