Month: January 2014

The Adventures of Beanboy

Mrs. Eaves by Mrs. Eaves

The Adventures of Beanboyby Lisa Harkrader

235 pages of everyday life with super hero connections.  What is your super power?  I bet you have one that you haven’t noticed yet.

Tucker MacBean is a seventh grader.  He has a passion for comic books . H2O man is his favorite super hero, but they’re all pretty cool in Tucker’s mind.  He has a best friend, Noah Spooner who is organized and driven to do his best in school.  He has a little brother, Beecher who is most often his main sidekick while his mom is trying to juggle single parenthood, a demanding job and a full load of night courses at the local college.  And, he may have an arch nemesis, Sam Zawicki, who seems angry at the world.  Though Tucker pretty much tries to stay out of her way, their paths keep crossing.

It might seem that Tucker MacBean is a typical kid at first, but the more you get to know him the more you admire is choices. He’s pretty extraordinary. Tucker’s mom is a phantom presence in his life – sticky notes and piles of clean laundry are often the only signs he has that she’s been home.  He doesn’t complain.  He just makes sure Beecher has what he needs.  That’s not always easy.  As Tucker puts it, “Something happened when Beecher was born.  He didn’t get enough oxygen in his brain right at first.  So he doesn’t do everything the way everyone else does.”  Tucker is resourceful.  When the opportunity arises, he decides he will enter a contest to earn a scholarship for his mom so she won’t have to work so hard.  He’s observant.  He notices how his classmates treat one another.  Maybe it is because he really does have a super power of invisibility that he is able to see so much and try to understand the other perspective.  He is honorable.  Tucker MacBean chooses to do what is right rather than what is popular most of the time – and that is hard!

The contest that Tucker has decided to enter says:  “H2O’s sidekick must possess the true heart of a hero.  Reach deep within yourself, find that heroic heart, and create a sidekick who can rank among the greatest sidekicks in comic book history.”  You’ll have to read The Adventures of Beanboy to find out how similar the powers of an ordinary seventh grader are to those of a super hero.  Maybe it’s the Clark Kent effect.

In reading about the author, Lisa Harkrader said she was looking forward to creating more books about Beanboy.  I hope she does because I am looking forward to reading them.

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place – The Interrupted Tale

Mrs. Eaves by Mrs. Eaves ,

The Interrupted Tale (The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, #4)by Maryrose Wood

385 pages of middle grade mystery full of puzzle, fun and farcical adventure

Spoiler Alert – If you haven’t yet found this series stop reading. Go find the first book and begin.  If you’re at NHS – come to the classroom and borrow it.  You’ll be glad you did.  Whenever you’re ready two, three and this one will wait for you there as well…

If you’ve loved the first three as I have you’ll understand when I say, “I was happy to find the fourth book in the ‘Incorrigibles’ series.”  I like Penelope Lumley.  I appreciate how she teaches the three “wolf” children she has been charged with.  Her model of gentle care, firm expectations and love is to be admired.  I respect her dogged perseverance and her constant and innovative problem solving.

Things are not as they seem at Ashton Place and slowly but surely Miss Lumley is peeling back the layers of deception and intrigue in a effort to uncover answer.  Why were Alexander, Beowulf and Cassiopeia left in the woods to be raised by wolves?  Were they abandoned or secretly cared for?  Is there a curse the plagues the Ashton men on the full moon?  Why has Edward Ashton feigned his death and then returned after 20 years?  Why was Penelope left at the school as a young child?  Are her parents truly gone?  What are Agatha Swanburne’s secrets?  And the hair poultice?  Without it Miss Lumley and the three Incorrigibles have the exact same rich, auburn hair.  Is there something to that?

These questions swirl around the web of connections that surround Miss Lumley and grow tighter in each story.  There are entertaining villains and surprising allies that await you.  You’ll finish wondering what happened in Ahwoo Ahwoo Island.  You’ll wonder if the mysteries that surround so much of Ashton Place will be solved.  And then you’ll remember the wise words of Agatha Swanburne, “Morning may not put one’s problems in a new light, but at least it puts them in a new day,” and you’ll be ready to move on.  Ready, but eager for the next book to arrive so the story can continue and new questions emerge.

Writers and lovers of words will smile at the play with iambic pentameter throughout the story closing at the end with a TA-tum, TA-tum, TA-tum, TA-tum, TA-tum.  There’s a delicious reference on page 247 about how books you read will later influence what you write:  “…Whether a little French boy named Victor Hugo also read Pierre et la Baguette and was inspired to write a similar tale years later, we will never know, but the truth is that grown-up writers cannot help but be influenced by the books they read as children. Someday you, too, may decide to write a novel that touches upon the subjects you read about as a young person.  Pirates, perhaps.  Or dancing chickens.  Or even some combination of the two.”

It is a fun mystery to savor.

Beholding Bee

Mrs. Eaves by Mrs. Eaves ,

Beholding BeeBy Kimberly Newton Fusco

historical fiction with an infusion of wishes for intermediate readers

Beholding Bee is a book that keeps coming back into my thoughts.  I keep wondering about her and the events in her life, as I try to figure out how things were in the 1930’s and 40’s.  What would happen to a little girl if she were suddenly orphaned by parents who worked at a traveling carnival?  Would she have been called a “freak” and put on display with the fat man and the bearded lady because of a birthmark?

Bee lives with Pauline in the back of the moving truck that is used to haul the carnival hotdog stand from place to place.  Bee slices the onions for the hotdogs – nice and thin – when they awake in the morning. Once the stand is open she works with Pauline to fill the orders.  She does this carefully keeping her hair over her “diamond” and turning a certain way so that people don’t see and stare or taunt.  Pauline has taken care of Bee for seven years, but the snaky carnival owner is figuring different ways to make even more money and sends Pauline away.  Bee is in charge of the hotdog cart on her own.  She is comforted when a caramel brown stray shows up and she decides to keep the dog against the owners wishes.  She has help from Bobby for a while.  He’s runs the pig races, another carnival event, but when he leaves the carnival too, Bee knows she must find a place where she belongs.

Bee runs away with her dog and one of the sweet little pigs from the race.  She runs until she finds a perfect house where she is welcomed by Mrs. Potter and Mrs. Swift.  Sometimes there, sometimes not, they support Bee and help her discover the things that matter in the world.  Surprisingly, happily,  she is one of them.  This book has wonderful characters, wonderful writing and a wonderful message.

“Everyone is always going to notice your birthmark, Bee. It’s like Ellen’s brace. You can’t help but notice. But it’s what people do after they notice that’s important. Do they treat you like a person with dignity? Or do they baby you and coddle you or make fun of you or worse?”

I think this books stays with you and makes you think and question, wonder and care.  I hope you’ll read it and let us know what you think.

 

Palace of Dreams

Mrs. Eaves by Mrs. Eaves ,

The Familiars #4: Palace of Dreamsthe 4th in The Familiars series

by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson

323 pages of fantastic adventure

Peace has come to Vastia.  Now that Skylar, Gilbert and Aldwyn had defeated Paksahara, Queen Loranella is on throne bringing her kingdom back to its former glory.  While dangers remain, the queen is not willing to cower in fear.  She is working to establish a rule of fairness and believes that forgiveness is the only path for moving forward.

Each familiar and loyal team has been sent on a questabout to test their growing abilities and to strengthen their magical bond.  Skylar and Dalton have gone in search of the lost Xylem garden. Marianne and Gilbert have traveled to the Ocean Oracle to seek the ancient tome, Protocols of Divination.  And Aldwyn and Jack have been sent to the haunted Equitas Isles to find Aldwyn’s Maidenmere Cat twin, Yeardley.  Each returns pair returns, two successful, one not, just in time to celebrate the queen’s birthday.

Before they even have a chance to share the details of their quests, the celebrated three are thrown into their next life or death mission.  Skylar has created a beautiful necklace for the queen, a gift she would like the three friends to give her.  It is the first gift given – and the last.  Immediately the necklace sinks into the queen’s neck poisoning her and bringing her to near death.  The healers can only keep her from slipping into death for two or three days.  That is all the time the familiars have – they must escape the dungeons and find the antidote to stop the parasitic poison from killing their queen.  It seems that everywhere the friends go for help they are always a step behind.  What or whom they seek has been removed just as they approach.  Their final choice is to travel through the treacherous Land of Dreams to talk to the queen herself, find the antidote and clear their names.

Nothing is as it seems.  Dreams turn to nightmare.  Friends become would-be-killers. Reason is clouded by desperate fear.  But Skylar remains scholarly and resourceful, Gilbert, though transformed for a time, remains a true jokester, and Aldwyn continues to logically move from problem to problem determined to reclaim his right to belong and do good for those who depend on him.  This might be my favorite so far.  I can’t wait for the next though – I wonder what will happen when Aldwyn and Yeardley are reunited.

You can find out more about the Familiars series and its creators at their  website.  You can even discover what your familiar would be.  Have fun.

Bo at Ballard Creek

Mrs. Eaves by Mrs. Eaves

Bo at Ballard Creekby Kirkpatrick Hill

278 pages of small town adventures for intermediate readers – it would make a fun read aloud for younger readers too.

Jack Jackson and Avrid Ivorsen had arrived in Alaska in 1897 Klondike Gold Rush.  They were both big men – bigger than most and that’s how they met each other.  They helped each other get the large sized clothes they needed.  Once they met, they figured out they were good help for each other – Jack ran the kitchen and Arvid did the blacksmithing for the mine.   They were good company.

One day Arvid was taking a break, standing on the riverbank watching the commotion of the logs and passengers being loaded on a steamship when Mean Millie, one of the good-time girls, walked up him and handed him her baby. Told him to take it to the orphanage in Nulato next time he went to town and walked away.  Arvid had no idea of what to do with a baby, but Jack did.

When the time came to take that baby to the orphanage, Avrid and Jack just walked on by and that was how Bo came to live at Ballard Creek with her two Papas.  She worked in the kitchen with Jack helping out with all she could.  She cut the biscuits and filled the wood box with kindling.  When her chores were done, Bo went to find Oscar – the only other child not yet old enough for school and they’d go visiting.  Sometimes they’d read magazines at Milo’s Roadhouse, sometimes they’d visit Lilly and Yovela or sometimes they’d visit Nakuchluk and Unakserak, the oldest people in town.  Bo could speak English and Eskimo.  She was a friend to everyone and everyone at Ballard Creek looked out for her too.

It is interesting to learn about life at the turn of the century in Alaska.  Interesting to learn how the gold was mined, how the mail was delivered, how supplies were shipped and how traditional ways were married with new customs so that all in the village survived and prospered.

The About the Author blurb says, “Kirkpatrick Hill was born into a mining family:  her father was a miner as was her grandfather.  When she was little the family lived at Cleary Hill Mines near Fairbanks, Alaska – a place much like Ballard Creek.  She says, ‘I almost always write bout true events and my characters are often based on actual people.  I couldn’t make up anything more interesting than things that really happened.’  That means that Ms. Hill has known some wonderfully caring people and they have shared some amazing times together.  Reading Bo at Ballard Creek is a real treat!  I hope many readers will join Bo in her small town and meet all the her friends as well.